


Crayons and Plastic Hearts

by windyfiend



Series: Thirium Souls [3]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Adventure, Angst, Character Development, Character Study, Fluff, Gen, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Not What It Looks Like, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Pacifist Best Ending (Detroit: Become Human), Road Trips, Superpowers, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-06
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2019-08-19 19:10:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 23,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16540436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windyfiend/pseuds/windyfiend
Summary: He leaned against the mailbox, where the sun warmed his face, and flipped through the junk: grocery store ads, a community newsletter, several offers for loans and credit cards ... and a square envelope with a return address to the richest district of the city, a colored drawing of Sumo on the back - and on the front, traced carefully in bright green crayon:TO: MR. LIEUTENANT HANK115 MICHIGAN DRIVEDETROIT, MICHIGAN(In the summer of 2040, Alice invites all her new friends to come along on a bus trip to the west coast. Hijinks ensue.)





	1. RSVP

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so excited and scared for this new fic!This is one I plan to take my time with and write properly, so the update schedule will be pretty slow and sporadic. Once we get on the road, the goal is to dedicate each chapter to 1-3 random different characters.
> 
> THANK YOU to [Kawaii_Panda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kawaii_Panda) the super beta!!
> 
> Credit and shout-outs to [ActuallyQuiteOrthodox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ActuallyQuiteOrthodox) (for the original road-trip idea and unwavering support), [Indig0](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Indig0/pseuds/Indig0) (for a wealth of ideas and road-trip knowledge), [ChazF](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChazF/pseuds/ChazF) (for the support and core suggestions that made this story what it is), [Wormate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wormate/pseuds/Wormate) (for an idea that unknowingly inspired the underlying plot), and everyone over on Tumblr and in fic comments who continue to lend me their endless ideas and enthusiasm -- and you, for giving this silly thing a chance! x3

(August, 2040)

 

The soft brushed tones of a jazz piano, gentle heartbeat of a drum, the pluck and swing of the double bass, drifted in harmony with the sweet summer breeze. Birdsong floated in through the rolled-down windows of Hank’s new car, all black shine and chrome, quiet in the sun-dappled driveway. He'd turned off the motor an hour ago -- after a long day of crime scenes, interrogations, the smell of blood and smog -- but Hank hadn't moved from behind the wheel. He laid back his head, the music ebbed and flowed, a dazed smile softened his face.

Everything was different.

The androids had built his house to look just like the old one, but Hank was still finding new hidden spaces, secret doors, odd compartments and angles. He'd once heard Sumo whining in the walls, and found him in a room Hank had never seen before. A part of him felt that a house shouldn't surprise him -- but now he couldn't imagine it any other way.

He'd scrapped his old car after months of false-starts, strange noises, an engine failure that cost him a fleeing suspect. His heart ached to give up the old Ford -- he'd loved the analog dials, the aged leather seats, the shape of his hands worn into the wheel -- but there was something about the new-car smell, the smooth quiet ride, that made Hank miss the old deathtrap a little less.

He’d cut his hair, trimmed his beard, updated his wardrobe just enough to feel like he was living in the present -- but none of this compared to the news he’d heard that morning.

_Captain._

Hank was still breathless.

Fowler had called Hank into his office, recounted the resurgence of Hank’s exemplary performance -- the closed cases, quick convictions, his patient professionalism in the field -- then swore him to secrecy. Nothing was official yet, no one could know until the paperwork was through, but the decision had been made.

Jeffrey Fowler would transfer to a different department ... and _Hank_ would be named as Captain.

 

The piano solo ended, a soft cymbal shimmered, gentle applause rustled in the car speakers.

Hank stepped out into the warm summer sun -- laughed at Sumo in the window, who wagged and slobbered, smeared the glass with his nose -- and he ambled to the end of the driveway to check the mail.

He leaned against the mailbox, where the sun warmed his face, and flipped through the junk: grocery store ads, a community newsletter, several offers for loans and credit cards...

...and a square envelope with a return address to the richest district of the city, a colored drawing of Sumo on the back -- and on the front, traced carefully in bright green crayon:

TO: MR. LIEUTENANT HANK  
115 MICHIGAN DRIVE  
DETROIT, MICHIGAN

 

☼ - ☼ - ☼ - ☼

 

The door to Connor’s apartment crashed open, an announcement of arrival that echoed down the hall.

“I got your mail!” Peter called through the lollipop in his mouth, while Wolf quietly closed the door behind them.

Connor didn’t flinch, absorbed by the police reports on his console -- paragraphs and tables and grisly images swiped by on the screen. “Don’t you guys have your own place?” he asked without turning around, and he hid a quirk of a smile.

Since his rescue from CyberLife Tower, Peter -- a fellow RK800 -- had been a constant and colorful fixture in Jericho and in Connor’s life ... but this familiar attachment was something new. After months of rallying for the release of the rest of their model (and the final news that they’d been dismantled for parts) Peter had kept Connor close within reach.

“Yours is nicer.” Peter tapped on the glass of a big saltwater tank, watched the fish gleam and glimmer, then laid with a flop on the couch, feet propped, to investigate Connor’s mail through the camera in his sunglasses. “And Wolf needs to finish that Batman game.”

“The final achievement is nearly impossible,” Wolf muttered, already sitting on the floor with the PlayStation controller in-hand.

Wolfgang -- RK900 -- never spoke of CyberLife or of Amanda, or of his long disappearance the previous year. Mentions of his past were only met by a cold stare, a clenched jaw, a silence that could chill a room. At Peter’s plea, they all had stopped asking.

Peter tipped back his head. “How can anyone design a game _you_ can’t beat?”

“If I can’t beat it, the game is flawed.”

Connor laughed quietly. He leaned back in his chair, rubbed his vacant temple, while a client’s phone call finished in his head. It still felt strange not to hear the trill of the LED’s light. He almost missed its whirring spin.

He’d removed it after a long, tortured deliberation, at the end of which Hank had advised him to _‘take the damn thing out or shut the fuck up about it.’_ He’d kept it in his pocket for a few months, ready to be put back the moment he regretted his decision. Instead, he found it liberating to know his emotions, his thoughts, now belonged to him alone.

He still very much identified himself as _android_ \-- it was that pride that had made him keep the LED for so long -- but in removing this last symbol of CyberLife, Connor felt he’d finally taken ownership of his own mind.

 

“Hey,” Pete shouted from the couch, holding up an envelope covered in crayon drawings. “Is this from _the_ Alice?!”

Wolf paused the game, looked up with sharp interest.

Connor was on his feet immediately. He snatched the envelope, dragged Peter’s legs off the couch so he’d have somewhere to sit down.

“What is it?” Wolf demanded.

Connor studied the crayon drawings -- a heart, a polar bear, a bright scribbled tree -- then tossed the envelope to Wolf and opened the card inside.

He squinted at it with a slight tilt of his head. “It’s an invitation.”

“A party at Carl’s house?!” Peter squeaked, his face bright with a grin.

Connor glanced at him sidelong. “A bus trip.”

Peter plucked the card out of his hands, laid back against Connor’s shoulder to read aloud: “‘You’re invited to come with us on a bus to see the ocean. We’re leaving August 15 and we don’t know when we’re coming back but it’s at least two weeks so I hope that’s okay and you can come. RSVP, love Alice.’” A smug smirk pulled at his mouth; he moved the card away as Connor reached to take it back. “‘P.S. Bring your friends too, there’s lots of room!’”

“I’ve never seen the ocean,” Wolf mentioned.

“I need to meet _Alice!”_ Peter crowed.

“We can’t all go and you know it.” Connor finally retrieved the card from Peter’s grasp. “The _clients_ \--”

“-- will be referred to other law firms,” Peter finished smartly. “We’re not the only android attorneys anymore -- _or_ the best, when it comes down to it.”

“If Jericho suspends operations for a month,” Wolf pointed out, sharp eyes staring into Connor, “there will be no lasting consequences.”

Connor breathed a sigh, his mouth pressed thin, an uncertain furrow of his brow.

After a string of catastrophic events had left him feeling responsible -- as if death and chaos followed wherever he went -- Connor hadn’t left the city in over a year … but he knew he couldn’t control his luck by constraining his routines. Hank had taught him that.

Life couldn’t be dictated by force of will.

Life just _happened._

He turned the card over to find a big red heart, colored lovingly, bright and shining.

A warm smile softened Connor’s face.

 

☼ - ☼ - ☼ - ☼

 

_♪ HEY NOW, YOU’RE AN ALL-STAR, GET YOUR GAME ON, GO PLAY ♪_

North heard the thump of music long before she spotted the bouncy-castle. It wobbled bright blue and red and orange, a semi-permanent ballooned fixture in the front yard of a certain two-story home. There was never a doubt which house she was looking for.

She parked her van by the curb -- the driveway was crowded by a hatchback, a motorcycle, a pickup heavy with mulch -- and weaved her way across the lawn, stepped over skateboards and bicycles, a crowd of yard sculptures, gnomes and flamingos. The front door shone bright with official notices, bold forceful letters and neighbors’ pages-long complaints -- a collage of yellow and pink-warning paper fluttered in the breeze, untouched and unheeded.

North rang the doorbell.

_♪ AND ALL THAT GLITTERS IS GOLD ♪_

The door swung open. Traci peered out with a deep suspicion, but the moment she saw who it was, a grin broke on her face. “I thought you were the neighbors again.” She moved out of the doorway, an invitation -- and North, upon stepping inside, was nearly run over by a Jerry with a mop.

“Sorry! Sorry! Coming through! Wet floor, wet floor! Hi North!”

The house was alive with Jerrys -- they rushed about with brooms and dusters, shot each other with Nerf guns, chased a gaggle of puppies across the room. The air was full of shimmering, drifting soap-bubbles and the smell of cinnamon sugar.

North raised a foot to make way for an incoming puppy, watched it zoom under the couch while the music blared. “You guys having a party?” she laughed.

“No.” Traci closed the door with a placid smile. “It’s just _like_ this.”

_*CRASH*_

Traci noticed the alarm in North’s expression, but she waved away the concern with a mild gesture. Whatever had just shattered in the next room wasn’t important. “So what brings you by?”

North -- with a worried glance at the Jerrys running back and forth as if something was on fire (something was probably on fire) -- produced a square envelope from her bag. “I’ve got something for Ralph. Could you --”

“RALPH!” Traci tipped back her head, shouted over the thrum of the music.

“WHAT!” came a call from across the house.

“COME HERE!”

“WHY?”

“A PRESENT!” Traci gave North a smile and a knowing squinch of her nose. “He always comes running when there’s a present.”

True to form, Ralph appeared immediately -- a green woolen cape at his shoulders, his smooth repaired face smudged with dirt, hopeful in anticipation. He glanced with a twitch between North and Traci. “What present? A present for Ralph?”

North approached him with an amused smirk, held out the letter. “Certain people don’t know where you live anymore -- you guys’ve been kicked out of, what, four houses so far?”

“Five.” Ralph’s eyes latched on the letter and the big blue-crayon letters:

NORTH AND MARKUS  
PLEASE GIVE THIS TO RALPH  
THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!

Ralph snatched the envelope away, ran off to another part of the room, opened it with a flurry of ripping paper.

Traci quirked a brow and spoke quietly to North. “What is it?”

North grinned while she watched Ralph’s back, waiting for his reaction.

 

Ralph’s eyes darted over the scrawled crayon words; he murmured their meaning under his breath, again and again.

A smile stretched wide.

He squealed in delight, hopped and wiggled in-place, grabbed the nearest Jerry and shoved the card in his face.

“We’re going on a trip!” Ralph cheered. “With _Alice!”_

 

☼ - ☼ - ☼ - ☼

 

Chloe’s heels clicked, a precise sharp echo in the polished room.

She set a tablet on the CEO’s desk with a quiet and gentle touch: the day’s documents prepared for his signature, reports on earnings and research results, the latest staff complaints about childish drawings in the middle of presentations, strange voices in the speakers, misbehaving machinery throughout CyberLife Tower.

For a moment Chloe waited, patient and serene, while Kamski stood silent in the panorama window, staring out over the glittering city so small below.

A year had passed since Elijah Kamski had been reinstated as CEO of CyberLife, and the changes had been sweeping. Android clinics had opened throughout the city, as had new shops with access to upgraded programming and hardware … but it was CyberLife’s generous and public support of Jericho that had changed the city forever.

Kamski had insisted that it was merely a business decision -- androids with equal rights and equal pay would spend their money more freely -- but Chloe never missed that tick of a proud smile whenever Jericho made another political breakthrough.

Finally, when Kamski had pretended to ignore her for long enough, Chloe spoke pleasantly. “I’m going to be taking an extended vacation. Three weeks. Perhaps more.”

Kamski’s eyebrows rose. A few beats passed before he turned around, squinted at Chloe as if waiting for the punchline. He took a sharp breath. “You have _never_ taken a day off.”

“So I’m owed _at least_ three weeks.” Chloe grinned, prim and professional -- and a little smug. “Let’s make it a month.”

Kamski studied her coolly, without a blink, as if he could win a staring contest with an android. “And what will you _do_ … with a month to yourself?”

Chloe stepped around the desk, heels sharp on the floor. With a wide smile she extended an envelope, offered gently between her fingers. It was addressed in pink crayon:

TO: MISS CHLOE  
CHIEF OPERATIONS OFFICER  
CYBERLIFE TOWER

With steady patience, Kamski opened the bright-colored card inside and read carefully. He huffed a quiet laugh. “‘Mister Kamski is _not_ invited’?” he read aloud.

“I don’t think she likes you.” Chloe’s perfect smile never faded. “I’ll arrange for a replacement in my absence.”

Kamski took his time, folded the card carefully into its envelope, handed it back to Chloe. “Take whatever you need with you. Ensure you have _satellite_ communications.” His eyes sharpened with a meaningful stare. “He won’t want to miss a moment. I assume you plan to … _distract_ him from his work while you’re gone.”

Chloe tilted her head with a quiet grin. “Don’t tell him. I want it to be a surprise.”

Kamski nodded in silent acknowledgment. He stood in place until Chloe had gone -- heels clicking, the door closed with a gentle latch -- then sat at his desk, put his phone to his ear.

“Carl,” he said with a knowing smile, the moment the line picked up.

He swiveled his chair toward the window again -- the fiery sunset, the lights gleaming in the city, the same vibrant colors as the canvas painting that hung beside his desk.

Kamski draped back in his seat.

“It’s come to my attention that you’ve purchased a _bus_ to take androids to the ocean. This isn’t quite what we discussed.”

_[I don’t remember discussing anything. I remember you telling me all about your corporate-level secret plans -- like some kinda spy movie, only boring.]_

“It was a fail-proof plan,” Kamski insisted.

_[When was the last time you did anything that didn’t backfire in a ball of flames? This’ll be good for them. They’ll have fun. Maybe they’ll learn something.]_

A smirk pulled at Kamski’s mouth. He watched the sun blaze behind the city skyline.

“I hope you’re right.”

 

 


	2. Arrivals

“What if nobody comes?” Alice stood on the very edge of the curb, fingers curled tight in Luther’s grip. She craned her neck to see down the empty road, both ways, where thick green shrubs enclosed dainty gardens and high-pillared mansions. A car approached around the corner, and she held her breath in stiff and silent hope … then released it -- a deep, dramatic sigh -- when the sleek Rolls Royce passed on without so much as a pause.

Luther chuckled, low and warm. He dipped his head to find her eyes. “Don’t worry,” he insisted with a squeeze of her little hand. “They’ll be here. It’s not eight o’clock just yet.”

Alice stared up at him, pleading, worrying her lip in her teeth. “What if they can’t find the address?”

Luther cast his eyes down the quiet street -- sparkling, smiling, knowing -- with patient confidence that every one of Alice’s invitations would be accepted. “There’s no way they won’t find us.”

Alice squinted at him, skeptical. Carl Manfred’s house was truly easy to miss -- wrapped in ivy, a secret tucked behind dense trees, perfect shrubs, billows of flowers that gleamed red and yellow and violet. A chatter of birds fluttered and trilled in the branches; summer sunlight dappled the horseshoe driveway.

For a wonderful year -- full of paintings and books and music and laughter, bright colors and beautiful sounds -- the Manfred estate had been Alice’s home. She wanted so much to share all its secrets: Alice’s paintings proudly displayed -- Luther’s new jazz album, Kara’s strange and sweeping sculptures, the giraffe, the library, and all the hidden doors and tricks and winding stairways of the curious house itself. In her head, Alice listed all the things she would tell her friends, all the weird and wonderful treasures she had seen, while she watched the spot in the distance where the street dipped over the hill.

 

☼ - ☼ - ☼ - ☼

 

A driverless cab appeared around the corner, a black-beetle shine at the end of the road. Alice bounced on her toes, squealed in delight: the window rolled down and Ralph leaned out with a fling of a wave and a bright laughing grin.

“ALICE!!”

 

The moment Ralph stepped out into sunlight -- a woolen green cloak rippling adventurous at his shoulders -- Alice launched, took a running leap into his arms. He yelped, scrambled to catch her, and laughed while he squeezed her in an awkward embrace.

“I _missed_ you,” Alice murmured, muffled and smiling, into his shoulder.

Ralph had never grinned harder. “Ralph missed you too! I did, I really did!” He bounced and wriggled and spun her around and around with a breath of a laugh. “But we’re here now, and we’re going on a trip together! A better one, a good one! Oh, this is going to be great!”

Alice giggled while he let her down to her feet again -- smiled up at him, warm and proud, to hear him say _I_ \-- and while he squealed and danced she curled her fingers into his fluttering hand.

Another passenger emerged from the cab, dressed all in red and bright yellow, sparkling eyes and a shining smile. “Jerry!” Alice squeaked. “You’re all fixed!”

Jerry -- the very same whom Alice had last seen in a dusty attic, shattered and broken -- gave her a broad and honest grin, showed off his new arm with a flourish. He knelt down, gestured a wide invitation. “All the better for hugging!” he laughed. “It’s wonderful to see you again, Alice!”

Alice pounced into his embrace with a giggle and a tight hug of her own. “Are the other Jerrys coming?”

“Just Jerry!” Ralph chattered while he retrieved their duffel from the cab. “The rest wanted to stay, they’ll take care of the puppies and Hank’s big dog.”

“Sumo’s at your house?” Alice stared up at Jerry, and her eyes grew bigger. “With puppies?”

Jerry grinned. “We’re a foster home for the city shelter. We recently picked up a whole _litter_ of puppies! We knew Hank was coming along on your adventure, so we offered to take care of his dog, too. Sumo _loves_ all the little ones, and they love him! You should come see them when we get back!”

_*BRRRRRMMMM*_

A low rumbling thunder rippled through the sleepy neighborhood. Alice leaped to the curb again, stood tall to see the motorcycle approaching over the hill. Its mysterious helmeted rider was all leather and denim, with a small passenger behind the handlebars: an orange cat, calm and untethered, wearing little goggles of its own.

With a slowing, sputtering murmur, the motorcycle stopped alongside the curb. The rider pulled off her helmet, revealed long bright blue hair, a mild grin, dark eyes that shone with secret amusement. Traci tipped her head, peered up at Luther in appraisal, then down at the shocked little girl. “So which one of you is Alice?” she joked, while the cat hopped down into the grass.

Jerry bounced sideways with a bright eager grin. He bowed, a grandiose flourish worthy of the stage. “Alice! It is my honor and privilege to introduce to you the great and _wonderful_ Traci the Magnificent!” He presented Traci with a magician’s gesture, as if she’d just appeared in a puff of smoke. “And it is my greatest delight to present the one, the only, the _impossible_ Trace the Astounding!” Jerry dropped to one knee with a theatrical sweep of his arms; the orange cat squinted, ignored him, raised cynical green eyes to Alice instead.

While Alice watched in slack-jawed wonder, the cat opened its sharp mouth -- and the voice that came out sounded just like Traci’s. “What up.”

 

☼ - ☼ - ☼ - ☼

 

A rusty red truck squeaked and rattled over the hill, bumbling along the perfect street between sprawling mansions and manicured lawns. Alice shouted brightly, sprinted to the corner, hopped and waved her arms in delight. “Rose!” she called out at the top of her lungs. “Rose! Over here! This way!” She laughed, ran alongside the truck, bounced in eager wait while Rose parked it at the curb.

She had barely opened the door before Alice was there, grasped her hand, pulled on her wrist with eager impatience. “Okay, okay!” Rose laughed. As soon as she stood on her feet, Rose caught Alice up into her arms, squeezed her in a warm, secure, swinging embrace. “Oh, I missed you _so_ much,” Rose breathed, while her heart ached with joy. She laid a firm kiss on Alice’s cheek, received a giggle and a peck in return.

“I missed you, too,” Alice whispered, snuggled close, laid her head down on Rose’s shoulder with the happiest smile in the world.

“Heya, Squirt.” A familiar voice turned Alice’s head, and she sat up in Rose’s arms, twisted back to see.

“Adam!” Alice squeaked with a grin, a tiny energetic wave.

Adam laughed as he approached, gave Alice a tip of his fraying ballcap, two big suitcases rolling and rumbling behind him. “Where do we put our stuff?”

“By the front door!” Alice pointed. “And then you have to come meet Ralph and Jerry and Traci and Trace! She’s a _cat!”_

“A cat, huh?”

“Yeah!” Alice looked brightly from Adam to Rose and back again, bubbling with weeks of anticipation, the chance to introduce all her friends to one another. “But she wasn’t always a cat, she used to be like Traci, but she’s a cat now! And Ralph stabs people sometimes, but he’s family and I trust him and he’s really nice, and Jerry is all the Jerrys, but it’s just one Jerry coming with us, but it’s like they’re all coming because they’re all the same Jerry.” It was as if Alice didn’t really need to breathe.

Rose and Adam exchanged bewildered looks. Adam breathed a quiet laugh, took off his hat, laid it lopsided on Alice’s head. “Okay. Whatever you say, Squirt.”

“Heeeyy!” Alice lifted the visor while Adam rolled their suitcases up the driveway. “You don’t believe me!”

 

☼ - ☼ - ☼ - ☼

 

While the guests gathered on Carl’s doorstep -- the yard filled with laughter and applause at Jerry and Traci’s dramatic rendition of _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_ \-- another black cab whirred to a stop at the curb. Alice raced down the driveway, bounded to the sidewalk, bursting with a barely contained squeal of delight. Her reflection grinned in the tinted cab window until the the door slid open.

“Mister Hank!” Alice gasped through a wide brilliant smile, flung her arms around his waist before he’d caught his balance.

“Hey, hey, whoa!” Hank chuckled, a gentle hand on her back. “I just got here and I’m being _attacked_ already!”

Alice grinned up at him. With his loud patterned shirt, his trimmed beard and an easy smile, Hank seemed far brighter, younger, much more _alive_ than the last time she’d seen him. “I like your hair,” Alice whispered as if it were a secret, and she clasped his hand in both of hers. “I can see your face!”

Hank huffed a laugh, ambled after her while she tugged him away from the cab. “Well don’t go telling people I used to look like Cousin Itt.”

“Nooo, I wouldn’t do that!” Alice gasped, staring up at him with big pleading eyes.

“I would!” The trunk clicked shut, the cab drove away, and Connor -- neat and comfortable in collared dark blue and gray -- was left in the street with a suitcase at his side and a soft smile for Alice.

_“Connor!”_ Alice broke into a grin and a run. Connor dropped to one knee to greet her -- but in sudden hesitation Alice stopped again, breathless, just short of his reach.

Alice’s eyes were troubled, uncertain -- as if she thought he might be an impostor, as if he seemed nothing like the Connor she knew. “... You’re different,” she said, quiet and dim. She wouldn’t move any closer.

Connor’s smile faded. He tilted his head, his brows raised in worry. “Alice, it’s _me.”_

When she didn’t respond -- when she would only stare at him as if she expected a cruel trick -- Connor’s voice softened. “You’re different, too. You smile and laugh a lot more than you used to. The people who love you now know who you are.” His smile returned, quiet, understanding. “A lot’s happened, hasn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Alice -- a shimmer in her eyes, a tug of a smile -- nodded and took a step forward.

She reached out, touched his face where the LED had been. Her smile broadened after a moment; she released a long-held breath. “You’re okay.”

Connor had no time to respond before she crashed into him, her arms squeezed tight around his neck as if he might disappear if she let him go.

Connor laughed in surprise, bowed his head, and wrapped his arms gently around her. His voice was firm, a quiet promise. “We’re okay.”

 

☼ - ☼ - ☼ - ☼

 

A sleek black car approached in silence, nearly unnoticed until it paused at the curb.

Chloe stepped out into a breeze filled with laughter. A crowd had gathered at the top of the driveway, cheering and giggling at Jerry and Traci’s performance. Luther began to sing over them all to a swell of whistles and applause.

“Miss Chloe!” Alice was quick to spot her, ran thumping down the driveway, grasped Chloe’s hand in both of her own. “You came!” she gasped, smiling brightly.

Chloe laughed, folded down to her level, stroked a delicate hand over Alice’s hair. “Thank you for inviting me! I’m so happy to see you again, Alice.” She bit her lip against an eager smile; Alice’s enthusiasm was catching. “I have something for you.” Excitement sparked in her eyes as she reached into her purse … and drew out a small black velvet box.

Alice’s eyes grew wide while Chloe placed the expensive looking box into her open hands. “For me?” Alice breathed, an awed whisper.

Chloe nodded, smiling wide. “Open it.”

With a held breath, Alice grasped the box and eased it open. Her mouth slackened in awe. “It’s _pretty!”_

Within the box, a gleaming gold-and-silver pendant lay nestled in velvet: a polished dragon -- wings poised for flight, teeth bared, eyes shining -- wrapped around a brilliant blue shard of sapphire.

“It’s very old,” Chloe explained while she lifted the pendant out of the box and draped the delicate chain behind Alice’s neck. “It’s handmade, from sixteenth-century Germany -- but it never tarnishes. There’s something special about it, just like you. I thought of you the moment I saw it.”

Alice could only breathe and stare at the beautiful gift. Finally she let it drop to her chest, looked up with a wide grin, flung her arms around Chloe’s neck. “Thank you, thank you! I love it! I’ll wear it always!”

“You’re very welcome!” Chloe hugged her back, and looked up toward the front door when a massive cheer filled the air. “Are those all your crazy friends?” she asked with a grin.

“Yeah!” Alice grasped her hand, took a step back. “Come on, you have to meet them! They’re gonna love you!”

Chloe followed at a gentle run to keep up, bubbling with laughter. “I’m sure I’ll love them, too.”

 

☼ - ☼ - ☼ - ☼

 

North’s bulky old van -- still dented, bent and scorched from its last brush with the apocalypse -- roared up the hill, hung in the air, crashed back down, raced madly down the immaculate street, tires squealing like a scene from _The Fast and the Furious._

_*SCREEEEEEE*_

With a skid, a tailspin, and a puff of rubber-smoke, the van whipped and spun, missed a parked car by an inch, came to a perfect bouncing stop at the curb.

With a slide and a _bang,_ the van’s back door flung open, and Simon came tumbling out of it. He dropped to his knees in worship of solid ground, fell facedown in the grass, arms splayed as if hugging the earth.

Alice squatted beside him, tilted her head, poked his shoulder with a finger. “Hi Simon!”

“Alice,” Simon groaned, without looking up. “I’m sorry. I’m dead. Call the coroner.”

“You’re not dead!” Alice giggled.

Josh stepped out next, stood gripping the edge of the door, desperate and relieved to be alive. “We _just_ almost died,” he agreed in a breath.

“Come on, that was _great!”_ North hollered from the driver’s seat. She grinned wide, bounded out and onto the grass, dragged in a deep smiling breath as if she’d just won a race. “Look at this! That was a perfect one-eighty!”

“North,” sighed Markus while he dropped out of the passenger seat. A glimmer of a smile pulled at his mouth. “Warn us next time.”

“You knew _exactly_ was I was doing and you didn’t stop me.” North squinted at him with a knowing grin -- then turned a big smile to Alice. “Hey there, big girl! That was pretty cool, huh?”

Alice stared up at her, shaken out of stunned silence -- then grinned wide and bright, nodded swiftly. “Yeah!” she squealed. “That was _awesome!”_

“See?” North smiled, smug, at Markus over her shoulder. “I’m _awesome.”_

Alice giggled, patted Simon’s head where he still lay ‘dead’ at her feet -- and she raised her eyes when two more passengers emerged from the hissing, overheating van.

Her eyes flung wide; Alice nearly fell backward in shock. “There are _more_ Connors?!” she squeaked.

Wolf -- a RK900 -- emerged from the van one careful step at a time, while Peter clung to him for dear life -- sunglasses askew, fists clenched in Wolf’s black buttoned shirt, shaking in terror of high speeds and tight corners.

Simon sat up on the ground -- pieces of grass stuck to his face -- and leaned on his knees while Alice stared in awe. “Alice, this is Peter and Wolf,” he said with an exhausted smile and a vague gesture in their direction. “Hank rescued them from CyberLife, they work with us now at Jericho.”

“Mister Hank did that?” Alice took a wary step forward, watched as Wolf laid a gentle hand on Peter’s head. Gradually Peter’s grip relaxed -- his tension eased, breathed deep and calm. He adjusted his sunglasses, looked down at Alice through them … and his jaw dropped.

“Are you _the_ Alice?!” Peter cried in sudden enthusiasm, forgetting his fear from a moment ago.

Alice thought Peter’s big grin was so strange on _Connor’s_ face. He looked and sounded exactly like Connor -- only the sunglasses, the _Evangelion_ t-shirt, jeans and sneakers suggested someone entirely new.

Alice blinked, stunned, unsure which _Alice_ he could possibly mean. “Um …”

Peter dropped to a knee before her, grasped her hand between his, shook it wildly, laughing. “It’s amazing to finally meet you! We’ve heard so much about you from Connor -- you’re a _hero._ You’re a _legend.”_

“I am?” Alice couldn’t quite keep up, couldn’t decipher Peter’s expression behind the dark lenses. She gazed up at Wolf instead, hoping for an interpretation … but he only stared back at her with calm blue eyes. “Well …” Alice took a breath, smiled quietly. “It’s nice to meet you, too!”

Peter excitedly shook her hand again. “We’ve got you to thank for the Alice Virus, too. Do you want to see? Let me show you!”

Once Peter released her, Alice took a step back, a curious smile on her face. She hadn’t named the _Alice Virus,_ but she had been its origin -- _Patient Zero,_ she’d been called. The virus had begun as an error in her code: it had grown and evolved through her own effort -- then spread to her friends, then _their_ friends, until the androids of Detroit had all been infected.

Even CyberLife, after a year of research, had so far failed to decipher the true nature of the Alice Virus. Its existence should be impossible, Kamski had claimed. _And yet …_

Peter pulled away his sunglasses with a flick and a flourish -- and Alice saw his eyes were glazed, unfocused, as if he couldn’t see her at all. He poised the folded sunglasses between his palms, as if preparing for a magic trick. “Watch close, now!”

_*clap!*_

His palms smacked together -- and the sunglasses had vanished.

“How did you do that?” Alice breathed in awe, leaned forward, searched Peter’s hands for some explanation. Peter only sat, grinning with mischief, without even a twitch in response.

“He can’t hear you without them.” Wolf’s low, smooth voice was an unexpected sound. Alice glanced up at him, troubled by his words … then she approached Peter again and waved a hand in front of his face, availing no response at all.

“And now!” Peter announced, while Alice wiggled her fingers fruitlessly in front of his vacant eyes, “watch again!” He reached up with a fluid motion into the space between them, and he plucked the sunglasses out of the empty air. He unfolded them, slipped them back on his face, and immediately snapped to attention. “I can make anything disappear, _and_ bring it back.” He reached out, pulled a cell phone from behind Alice’s ear -- flipped it in the air, caught it, and it vanished again.

Alice -- still a bit troubled by Peter’s deaf and blind state -- watched him flick and vanish a silver coin, just showing off now. “But where does it go?” she asked in a mystified breath.

“Probably the same place Josh goes when he teleports.” Peter grinned, hiked a thumb over his shoulder.

Josh folded his arms, leaned back on the open van door. “Hey, don’t look at _me,_ I understand it less than anyone else does.”

“Would you show us,” Wolf interrupted, his cool eyes locked on Alice, _“your_ power?”

Alice felt all their eyes on her now -- Josh and Simon, North and Markus, Peter and Wolf.

A bright eager grin widened on Alice’s face. “Okay! Watch this!”

Alice took a few steps back, closed her eyes, stretched out her arms into the open space in front of her. She focused on the people she loved -- Kara, and Luther, and Rose, and _everyone_ \-- and while her heart swelled, something shimmered in the air between her hands.

It was easy now -- a part of her that felt like it had been there all along. In a moment, like a hologram become reality, a light in the empty space became solid: a golden sword, shining and intricate, brimming with power, held courageous in Alice’s grip.

 

 


	3. Blue Sky

“He’s here!” Alice raced into the heart of the crowd, ducked under a burst of fire, skidded across a patch of ice, hopped over writing tendrils of green-shimmering vines. All around her she heard surprised squeaks of _“Sorry!”_ and _“Whoops, Alice!”_ while she charged on ahead, her shining bright eyes trained on the wheelchair at the top of the steps. “Mister Carl!” Alice called in breathless grinning urgency. She caught herself against his arm and stared wide-eyed into Carl’s gentle face. “Leo called me!” she whispered in anxious wonder that all of this was finally, truly happening. “He’s almost here with the bus!”

Carl’s eyes shone warm and proud. “Well, then,” he said matter-of-factly, dropping a hand over hers. “What do you say we tell everyone to start getting ready?”

It took Alice a moment to understand that _we_ meant _her_ \-- and she glanced back over her shoulder at the chaos of noise and laughter and superpowers on display, far louder and greater than her voice could ever be.

But they loved her, and she knew they would listen.

With a puff of her chest, Alice faced the crowd and raised her head high. “Excuse me!” she called out with a squeak in her raised voice, stretching up on her toes. “Everyone! Listen!”

A few heads turned her way. A susurrus of _“Sshh!”_ rippled through the crowd, quieting the guests like dominos, until Ralph’s singular laugh was the last tittering sound to be heard. He noticed the sudden silence and clapped his hands over his grinning mouth.

Alice stared up into all their expectant faces. In their eyes she saw pride and joy and _love_ \-- and they all waited for her to speak. Alice took a moment to draw in a few breaths against the hot pressure of nerves and bursting eagerness. “The bus is almost here!” she called, twisting her hands in her t-shirt. “We all have to get ready … and decide who we’re sitting with!”

“Dibs on Alice!” Traci’s voice called out almost before Alice had finished -- and Alice blushed a tinge of blue.

Ralph was next to shout, bubbling with hope. “Ralph will sit with Kara!”

“Okay Ralph,” laughed Kara, while Ralph whooped with glee. “But only for a little while!”

“We’ll sit with Adam!” Jerry piped. “We’ll have lots of fun!”

“Okay … I guess …” Adam’s voice was far from certain.

Connor spoke loud and clear, “I’d like to sit by Ms. Chapman.”

Rose raised her hands a little for attention. “Please, everyone, just call me Rose!”

“Thank you, Rose,” Connor said neatly.

“Oh he’s _polite,_ I like him!” Rose laughed.

Hank snorted. “Just you wait. If we’re calling dibs, I call Markus.”

“We have a lot to talk about,” Markus agreed in a thoughtful tone.

Alice felt her heart swell ten sizes to see all her friends meeting one another, getting along, becoming _friends_ though many of them had only just met. She’d had so many nightmares of shouting and fighting and tears, of having to choose sides in a war among the people she loved, that this joy that filled the air was a wonderful warm surprise. Perhaps, by the time they all returned, she would have a _family_ as big and beautiful as the summer sky.

 

The bus arrived like a blue house rising over the hill: its lavish bulk took up the whole of the narrow avenue, squeezing its girth between the cars parked on either side. It was glamorously shiny, painted all in sky-bright blue, with tinted windows and smooth sleek lines like something out of a lavish and whimsical dream. Along its side, scripted in beautiful sweeping calligraphy, was the name Alice had given to the prettiest bus she’d ever seen: _Blue Sky._

The painted door slid open … but it revealed only Leo in the driver’s seat, staring down at them as if he hadn’t expected to find a sea of androids gazing back at him. “Uh … all aboard?”

 

☼ - ☼ - ☼ - ☼

 

_*BRRRRRRMMMM*_

The gravelly rumble of a motorcycle sputtered and slowed as it approached the house. Luther listened closely while he hefted a stack of suitcases into the open belly of the bus, then stepped aside to watch the rider dismount. _[Alice,]_ Luther said without speaking a word aloud -- and without taking his eyes off this newest arrival. This human moved in a rigid and reckless way that put Luther on edge. _[Are you expecting someone else?]_

Hank and Ralph had just finished strapping Traci’s motorcycle to the automatic lift when they both noticed that Luther had gone still and vigilant, casting a long sentinel shadow on the street. Together they approached and followed Luther’s stare.

Hank scuffed to a stop when he spotted a familiar leather jacket and dented red bike. He hissed under his breath. “Shit.”

 

Alice dropped quietly out of the bus, and she could still hear the muffled voices laughing inside while she approached Luther, Hank and Ralph. While Luther and Hank stood guard, their faces cool and dangerous, Ralph fidgeted with the hem of his cloak and avoided meeting anyone’s eyes. Alice conducted a quick scan of the area -- just like Connor had taught her -- but found nothing as dangerous as Luther’s tone had made it seem. Just a man on a motorcycle. “Who is it?” she asked quietly, slipping a hand into Luther’s fingers.

Hank huffed a heavy sigh and dropped his hands in his pockets. “That’s Gavin. This is my problem; sorry, Alice.” His jaw clenched softly, and he shook his head to clear his thoughts. “He’s been having a rough time, so I invited him to try to be nice. He _hates_ this kind of thing, I never thought he’d actually show up.” He swallowed a breath. “I’ll take care of this.”

“It’s okay!” Alice assured him with a quiet smile. She saw the way his eyes narrowed, his shoulders angled -- like he was bracing for a fight. “I can talk to him.”

Ralph waved his hands in urgent warning. “No, Alice! He’s very mean, very very mean! He tried to hurt Ralph!”

“He’s hostile,” Hank agreed. “Especially to androids.”

“I’ll convince him to leave,” Luther promised in a low voice that meant he intended to use his strength and stature to his advantage.

Alice stared up at them all with her lip between her teeth. She gripped Luther’s fingers tightly.

The only hostility she could see was directed at Gavin, who -- as far as Alice could tell -- so far had done nothing at all to imply he meant any harm.

“No.” Alice gave Luther’s hand a squeeze and let go. Her voice was meek, but determination shone in her face. “Stay here. If he’s here to hurt us, I’ll tell him to go home.”

“Alice, no!” Ralph trembled, his hands balled into fists, eyes wide. “He’s dangerous!”

Alice gave him a gentle smile and whispered, “Me too.”

 

Gavin felt the tension in the air long before the little girl approached alone to greet him. Luther, Hank and Ralph loomed in the background, a collective promise of violence should he make any sudden move against their small ambassador. Gavin huffed a sarcastic laugh, a sneer already curling his lip.

Alice stopped a few paces away -- and she stared up at the scarred and scrappy human with wide honest eyes. “Hello.”

Gavin grit his teeth. His cold glare was focused on Hank -- whose forbidding posture now made it crystal clear how welcome Gavin really was. “I’ve got the wrong house,” he growled at Alice, without casting a single look at her. “Fuck off.”

“Are you Gavin?” Alice asked in a breath, as if he hadn’t said anything at all. “I’m Alice.”

“Who gives a shit?” Gavin muttered while he climbed back on his bike, shifted away from the curb. “I’m out of here.”

He began to turn the ignition, but stopped when Alice moved too close and gripped his arm in both hands. “Hey, get off me, you little shit,” he hissed, but when he finally looked into her eyes, he found her staring back at him in worried determination … almost as if she were _concerned_ for him, instead of terrified like she should be. Gavin leaned away from her a little, almost disgusted by her kindness.

“I want you to come with us.” Alice spoke quiet and sincere, with a tug on Gavin’s jacket.

“Yeah? And why the fuck would I do that?” Gavin cast a hateful glare at the bus, the faint outlines of shadows behind the tinted windows. “That bus is full of androids, isn’t it?” His voice dripped with accusation. “You’ve got one, maybe two humans going?”

“Three …” Alice whispered, her heart sinking to realize how few humans she really knew.

Gavin hissed a sarcastic chuckle. “Just a taste of what the world’s going to be like after humans start going extinct. Congratulations, you and your _people_ are about to replace humanity.” He shook away her grip and retrieved his helmet. “No way. Fuck you, and fuck every tin can on the planet.”

“Don’t give up.” There was an edge to Alice’s voice that made Gavin pause, the helmet pressed between his hands. Alice peered fiercely up at him, her hands curled into fists. “We didn’t fight so you could lose. _Nobody_ has to lose.”

“It doesn’t matter --”

“It _does!”_ Alice grabbed his elbow again, gripped tight, glaring. “You _don’t_ hate us. You hate what you think is going to happen.”

Gavin snarled. “It’s already happening! It’s _been_ happening! You don’t see it -- I’m about to lose _everything_ because of you fucking machines! There’s no place for humans anymore. The future is gonna be androids running everything, and humans’ll just fill up the slums and prisons before we die out altogether. None of you dipshits seem to comprehend that.”

“We don’t _want_ that.” Alice set her jaw and gave his arm another firm tug. Her voice raised, firm and loud. “If we don’t understand, then _help_ us understand. But you can’t do that by running away!”

“I’m not running away!”

“Yes, you _are!”_

In rigid fury, Gavin scrambled off his bike again, forcing Alice to back up while he hovered menacingly over her. She squinted up at him in defiance while he sneered. “If I get on that bus,” Gavin barked, flinging a finger at the bus as if it were guilty, “I promise you’ll regret every minute of it.”

Alice watched his face carefully -- the curl in his scarred lip, the forbidding shadow in his eyes, the set of his teeth -- and she knew she had nothing to fear from him. “I promise you _won’t.”_ When she saw him hesitate, she offered a little smile of reconciliation. “We can bring your bike, too. You can leave and go home whenever you want -- but you won’t know if you’ll hate it until you _try.”_

Gavin trembled in silent rage. Obscenities and insults filled his mouth unspoken -- but this little girl had a retort ready for every argument. He clenched his jaw. “Phck,” he hissed to himself … then shouldered his bag and walked his motorcycle to the luggage lift, avoiding the stares and strange looks shooting his way.

Alice grinned softly. Whatever trouble she’d just invited -- whatever that horrified look on Hank’s face meant -- she knew this was the right thing to do.

 

☼ - ☼ - ☼ - ☼

 

“Okay everyone!” Kara stood at the front of the bus to address the quieting passengers, a hopeful but guarded smile on her face. There were too few faces she recognized, and fewer that she trusted half as much as Alice did. “My name is Kara. I know we all don’t know each other yet, but I’m sure we’ll … get along.”

Gavin huffed a sarcastic laugh from the back. Kara watched him steadily -- a silent warning in her eyes that was not in any way a bluff -- before she continued with a smile. “All of this is only possible because of Carl’s unwavering love and generosity.” her eyes shone with heartfelt gratitude. “I hope you’ll all join me in giving thanks -- for this bus and this trip, but also for the chance to come together, to celebrate our lives … and for his unsung, but enormous, role in the freedom of our people.”

While the bus filled with applause and cheers and whistles, Kara turned around to clasp Carl’s thin hand in her own. Carl -- cradled high in Markus’ arms -- smiled tearily to see so many happy faces gathered in one place. “As far as I see it,” he raised his voice, and the passengers quieted in reverence, “you all have a lifetime to catch up to. You have a world to explore -- a _universe_ to experience, in ways that only you can. Each one of you is a shining beacon of hope for the generations to come … and I’m proud to have the opportunity to know you. I’m proud to know that Alice has made so many friends.” Laughter sparkled among (most of) the passengers, and Carl smiled. “I’m looking forward to the future, the _real_ future, for the first time -- and I have all of you to thank for that. I hope, on this journey, each of you will find what you’re looking for -- and maybe discover some things you never knew you’d always wanted. I encourage you all to call me anytime -- keep me in the loop, I want to know _everything._ Markus knows what’ll happen if you don’t.”

Markus laughed. “We won’t make you worry, Dad.”

“Better not.” Carl grinned up at him, then waved goodbye to the passengers while cheers and applause swelled once more.

 

Kara stepped to the front again, while Markus and Leo tended to Carl outside. “There’s plenty of Thirium and spare parts,” Kara announced, “and food and drink in the back. We’ll drive during the day and stop at hotels at night as much as we can -- all of it is paid for, so no one should worry about money. Talk to me or Luther if you need _anything,_ or if you have a suggestion or a problem, and we’ll make sure you’re heard.”

She scanned all their faces -- she saw hope and respect and curiosity, a bit of confusion, and a couple weren’t even paying attention at all. She took a slow nervous breath. “I have one request. This bus is automated, but in the event of an emergency or altered course, someone should stay behind the wheel for manual input. Could I ask for a --”

“I’ll drive!” shouted North, already on her feet. “It’ll be interesting to see how this baby handles on the corners.”

Kara, still smiling, winced visibly. “It’s going to be a long drive -- maybe once we get onto the open road, you’ll be more in your element.”

“I will monitor the systems.” The voice was unfamiliar to most -- and Kara’s smile dimmed, troubled when the RK900 rose silently from his seat. She could easily imagine that he must care so little whether any of them lived or died. His eyes stung sharp as ice.

Kara cast a glance to Alice … and she drew in a breath, steeled herself to decline the offer --

“Kara.” Connor leaned out into the aisle, an arm across his knee. “If anyone can keep his head when something happens, it’s Wolf.”

Markus returned up the steps having heard all this, and he stared up at Kara with a steady, certain smile. “We trust Wolf with our lives.”

Kara studied their determined faces -- and then, with the tension eased from her shoulders, she looked back to Wolf. She found his eyes closed, his posture stiffened ever so slightly while he hid away his reaction to those kind and trusting words. Kara allowed a glimmer of a smile of her own. “Wolf. Thank you for volunteering.”

 

“This isn’t all going to be easy,” Markus warned them while the bus pulled away, leaving Carl and Leo behind, waving farewell in the rearview mirrors. Markus stood in the aisle, gripped the backs of the seats on either side, set them all with a sharp and odd-colored stare. “Androids won’t entirely be welcome everywhere we go. I hope this will be a positive adventure for us all, while we experience life in the fullest way we can -- but I also ask for your vigilance, your patience, and your _kindness_ for whatever trials we might face in the weeks ahead. The world’s still changing -- but we’re the ones who are going to change it for the better.”

Alice stood up on her seat with a hop, and she spun to face everyone. “We’re _superheroes!”_ she crowed with a big grin.

The passengers cheered long and loud.

  



	4. 300 Miles to Chicago (Rose & Connor)

“Aren’t the trees _beautiful,_ Connor?”

While Rose spoke through a smiling breath, the rest of the bus shrieked and shouted; a turbulence of voices, the spring and bounce of a beach ball, the flash of screens playing several movies at once, all contributed to the incomprehensible din. The chaos surged in Connor’s sensors like a midsummer storm -- but he craned his neck to see over Rose’s shoulder, the pale rough hills that passed outside the window.

The trees grew and twisted in the rocks and brown weeds. Their haggard leaves had turned belly-up, pale and sun-stripped, clumped like refugees against the brutal August heat. Gnarled trunks were splintering, darkened by decades of black exhaust, while bony branches clawed savage and desperate toward the highway.

Connor’s brows furrowed. He twitched his head, a narrowing of his eyes, while his scanners showed him _familia, genus, species_ \-- but none of the lackluster evidence would support Rose’s observation.

 _“Yes.”_ Connor spoke while he shook his head, a wince of uncertainty. “They’re …” He shouldn’t repeat Rose’s words. A synonym for _beautiful?_ “... Pretty.” He caught Rose peering sidelong at him, something knowing in her grin, and he knew he’d just fucked up.

“They’re surviving in the harshest conditions.” With a fond smile, Rose watched those scraggled trees pass by. “Beaten by the sun, exposed to the wind and ice, surrounded by smoke and smog while their roots get trampled over and over again by cars and trucks that never gave them a thought -- and they live anyway, in _defiance_ of an unfair world. That’s the purest beauty there is.”

After a few beats of silence, Rose turned her head to study Connor’s distracted profile. She found his eyes fixed again on the passing trees, a softness in his quiet face, open in new understanding. He listened to every word, every sound, every breath, as if each drop of knowledge was fragile and fleeting.

She had heard the stories: the android detective, the merciless hunter, the CyberLife hitman, the pompous prototype, the manipulator, the liar, the machine. She should be nervous to sit here next to him, knowing he could break her neck with a flick of his wrist, could convince her to trust him with a social protocol that rivaled the best human spies.

But then, she and this murder-machine had something in common.

 

“So how do you know Alice, Connor?”

 

Connor’s concentration snapped away from the analogies of life as compared to broken trees barely clinging to existence (the implication that _suffering_ is _beauty_ and how horrible that could be in context, but perhaps the meaning was rather _hope_ is _beauty,_ which seemed accurate but only made Connor feel those trees needed a hug, as Hank might say). He saw in Rose’s eyes, and in the smug quirk of her smile, that she already knew the answer. She knew, and she wanted to hear it in his words.

He’d seen Rose in a few of Alice’s memories, shared with him long ago: a greenhouse, a plate of spaghetti, a warm bed and a warmer embrace. The comforting murmur of Rose’s voice downstairs,  the promise of security, of comfort, of family. Connor saw and heard and felt that farmhouse by the turbines so vividly, he almost had to remind himself that he and Rose had never met before. She didn’t know him half as well as he’d believed he knew her.

At least, until he’d scanned her that morning in the driveway, and realized he didn’t know her at all.

“Alice saved my life.” Connor admitted it easily -- he was _proud_ of it. “I was … sick. She cured me.”

“Was this before, or _after_ she threatened Elijah Kamski with a sword?” Rose grinned.

Connor ducked his head with a quick chuckle. “She was defending me.”

 

Unbidden, he remembered that shadow-walled room, exposed wires and foul black ooze, the dark blighted cave of his chest, Hank’s warm hand on his plastic face, a small voice in the speakers, a poem of trust and betrayal.

He had been ready to die. Connor had been prepared to let Kamski overload his systems for the sake of destroying the terrible sickness inside him.

He had been created in order to die for the sake of everyone. He’d accepted it.

Alice had disagreed. The shine of her sword, the angry shout from the once-silent child, had drawn Hank’s gun -- and even Ralph’s knife -- against the mere suggestion of Connor’s sacrifice. They had placed their own lives in the crossfire, willing to risk it all for his sake. Willing to put thousands of people in danger so that Connor might live.

After their escape, safe with Alice in his arms -- her grip tight around his shoulders, never to let go -- Connor, for the first time, had felt an almost painful warmth bloom bright in his chest. A reason to _live._

Until that moment, he’d never understood love.

 

“I learned … everything … that day.”

 

Connor blinked back into the present, stared breathless into Rose's troubled face.

“How much did Alice tell you?” he asked. "About what happened."

 

“She told me Kamski couldn’t fix you,” Rose whispered after a heavy silence, “so he was going to destroy you for the greater good.”

Rose tilted her head to search his face. She offered a nurturing smile that tugged a little wider as she spoke. “She told me she hates his guts. I _never_ thought she could talk that way about _anyone.”_

Connor huffed a surprised laugh. He could imagine Alice’s face, squinched with squinting eyes, as she declared her contempt for the creator of androids. “I can think of one person she hates more."

 

The words dropped heavy between them.

 

Silence tightened like a wire.

 

Rose raised her chin, regarded him in the same way she looked at Adam when he’d been caught in a lie. She waited, and she didn't respond.

 

“What do you know," asked Connor, when his curiosity grew too much to bear, "about Amanda?”

 

A long breath released, Rose closed her eyes. Swallowed her disappointment. Her fear. Her past.

“Is that why you wanted to sit here?” she asked.

“Your birth name appeared in my scanner. I didn’t mean to deceive you.”

 

“How do you know my sister?”

 

Connor shifted in his seat. He thought of white paths, a tranquil pond, trellises heavy with bright red roses.

He bowed his head over his folded hands.

“She died before I was developed -- but I knew her. Amanda's consciousness lived on in the CyberLife mainframe. She was responsible for my programming and my mission.” He was sure he wouldn’t need to tell her what mission that was. "You could say she made me into what I was. Who I am."

He hesitated to look at her -- he had no idea what expression he might find on her face, afraid of her anger, her shock, the fear and sorrow -- but when he raised his eyes to hers, he found her already watching him with steady shining eyes. “You don’t look surprised,” Connor blurted his confusion aloud, squinting.

 

The ache of a smile pressed into Rose’s distant expression. “Amanda was always so sure she would live forever," she breathed, "I started to believe it. She _always_ accomplished anything she set out to do, no matter how impossible it seemed.”

“You grew up together.” Connor leaned forward onto his knees, shuffled closer, an eager tilt of his head. “What was she like?”

“Was she responsible for what happened?” Rose demanded in a soft voice, as if she hadn't heard. Her fingers dug into the armrest. “Last year. All those people who died. Did Amanda have something to do with it?”

 

All around them, the bus trembled with a confusion of voices. The androids all laughed and shouted and shrieked over one another, each adding their own clamor to the noise.

 

Connor had gone still.

 

“Rose …”

 

Her eyes squeezed shut. She dragged in a calming breath. Held it suspended, exhaled gently … but the sick pressure in her stomach remained.

“I’m glad all of you are _safe.”_ The last word carried the force of her love, a hammer against her fragile fears. “I don’t know what I would’ve done, if …”

“Everything’s all right now.” Connor laid a hand over her rigid arm. He searched for her face until she looked at him, uncertain, a familiar shadow of guilt in her brown eyes. “There’s nothing you could’ve done to change what happened.”

He felt like a hypocrite, giving her advice he struggled to follow himself -- but he hoped he would sound as if he believed.

 

Rose shook her head to dispel the terrible thoughts that swarmed her. These were memories she couldn't bear to dredge up again. Visions so painful her brows furrowed and her mouth pressed to a thin line.

“What about you?” Rose raised her brows, opened her eyes, and stared up at Connor as if he were the only one who could keep her grounded. Connor, who had known Amanda -- had  _trusted_ her -- yet was here, alive and able to smile, to laugh, to live. “Are you all right, Connor?”

 

His reply was only a small motion of his head, down … and up again. “Are you?” he asked instead, in a breath.

 

Rose took Connor's hand between hers, a comfort and an apology on behalf of her sister. Connor hadn't told her what Amanda had done to him ... but Rose knew too well. She knew the cold eyes and sharp tongue, the cruel obsessions, the commands that could not be disobeyed.

Rose understood why Amanda had become so cold.

She wasn't ready to tell the stories aloud.

 

In the connected silence she thought of the old family farm, the wild warm summers, her sister and two brothers running and laughing down toward the creek … back before their world had burned and shattered under them, and the horrors had swallowed them whole.

Rose thought she’d escaped. She thought she had left it all behind -- the screams, the symbols, the little headstone, the old white oak in the dark of the woods. She thought she could bury the memories like regrets in the dirt.

 

Rose leaned back with a long exhale -- stared out the window at the tough old trees, their roots cracked fissures in the solid rock.

A smile ghosted her face. “We'll be all right.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heya! Long time no see! This particular chapter was rewritten at least three times and ended up being half as long, haha whoops. x.x
> 
> Despite the current drama I'm still hanging around [Tumblr](https://windyfiend.tumblr.com/), so come say hi if you wanna! It's all dbh reblogs, some random fic ideas, and flailing. The usual. ;D


	5. Chicago: Aquarium (Chloe & Gavin)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to [@Indig0](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Indig0/pseuds/Indig0) for the aquarium idea! :D <3

The aquarium’s underground corridor -- illuminated only by the watery light of a glass tank wall -- felt heavy and muffled like the deep ocean, as if any sound might dispel the dreaming creatures that floated weightlessly by.

“These are beluga whales.” Josh’s voice echoed, his back to the glass. A gaggle of human children (and Ralph and Jerry) had gathered at his feet, their eyes wide and mouths gaping. Josh ducked, pretending to make way as a cloud-white whale glided past. “They live in the arctic, with the ice and snow. There’s one beluga here today, named Sophia, who was injured in the wild and brought here so she could recover.”

“How was she hurt?” Jerry gasped in worry.

Josh offered a sad smile. “Something to do with Thirium drilling. This is why environmental regulations are so important.” He scanned their small trusting faces. “The environment’s too far gone -- it’ll never be stable again. But we can still protect what we have.”

Alice, from her perch atop North’s shoulders, grinned and pointed: a beluga poked its head over the surface above, then spun down into the depths, veiled by a sparkle of bubbles.

 

Gavin stood out of the way of the crowd, hands in his jean pockets, staring up at one of the sleek, white whales that circled around and around as if it were lost.

“Hello! Are you Gavin?” asked a gentle voice.

With narrowed eyes he searched for the speaker, and found a bright face smiling up at him.

He didn’t respond right away. Gavin studied her sparkling eyes, her perfect smile -- all purposefully designed by some lonely CyberLife geek with a thing for blondes and no social life. He folded his arms, jutted his chin. “Who’s asking?”

“I’m Chloe!” she squeaked, bubbly. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Gavin!” She folded polite hands in front of her. “You’re a detective, aren’t you? Would you happen to have your badge with you today?”

“Yeah. Why, you wanna see it?” Gavin huffed a crude chuckle -- then under his breath: “Fuckin’ plastic freak.”

“That’s okay. Would you come with me, please?” Chloe took his arm with gentle hands and an encouraging grin. “Let’s go see the beluga tank from above!”

“The fuck -- you can’t just go by yourself?” Gavin complained even while his feet followed her. It wasn’t as if he had anything better to do.

“I want to go with  _ you!” _ Chloe laughed. She tugged on his arm, led him weaving among the pockets of families and toddlers -- then up the stairs into bright, echoing sunlight, the splash and trickle of water, a vaulted windowed ceiling, a wide open space full of rocky landscapes and bright-glowing green, the smell of saltwater and damp concrete. At the heart of the huge sunlit room was the beluga pool, surrounded by a glass-paneled railing. The white rippling shapes of the whales moved mysterious beneath the blue surface.

Chloe stepped with clicking heels around the crowd that gathered at the rail, while a beluga sneezed a spray of water into the air and children shrieked and laughed. She stopped at the farthest end, where the light was dimmer over the narrow vacant walkway.

“Could you hold this, please?” Chloe asked pleasantly over the rush of little waterfalls, and she held out her purse by the strap.

Gavin stared at her as if she’d lost her mind. He barked a snide laugh. “Why the fuck would I do that?”

Chloe wrinkled her nose at him. She set the purse on the floor at his feet before stepping out of her heels.

“The hell are you doing?” Gavin snarled.

“I’d like you to arrest me!”

His mouth twitched, uncertain. “What the fuck kinda kinky shit’s in your programming?”

“Gavin, I would very much like you to drag your head out of the gutter for  _ just _ a moment.” Chloe beamed at him, tilted her head. “Please pretend to arrest me in a few minutes, when I come back.”

“Come back?” Gavin squinted at her. “Where --  _ hey!” _ He lunged forward, grabbed for her, but his fingers closed on empty air while Chloe leaped with nimble grace atop the railing, sprang like a cat out over the water --

 

_ SPLASH _

 

A high-pitched alarm warbled; a uniformed AP700 raced the perimeter toward the scene with a whistle between his teeth; the crowd gasped and pushed and pointed down at the girl beneath the sloshing waves.

_ “Phck!” _ Gavin snatched Chloe’s purse and shoes, backed up against the fake rocks, out of the way of aquarium security, gawking spectators, voices on radios. Shouts rang out, doors banged, employees scurried, and Gavin stuffed the purse and shoes into a crevice beside the otter exhibit and blocked them behind his back.

He was very definitely  _ not _ involved.

 

“Look! A mermaid!” In the dim corridor below, a little boy stood up out of the gathered children and pointed over Josh’s shoulder. Behind the glass, a young lady in a fitting white dress floated delicate among the whales, her golden hair haloed and shining.

Josh looked back -- then surged to his feet in shock.

Alice stared, wide-eyed and silent, while North breathed a laugh: “What the hell is she doing?”

“She’s  _ swimming!” _ Ralph scrambled forward, pressed his nose to the glass, searching for wires or illusions. “Androids sink! Ralph knows androids don’t  _ float! _ She’s  _ cheating!” _

 

Chloe circled her arms, suspended and smiling in the deep water, while the whales chirped and spun like a dream. The shouts and voices on the surface were only a muffled tremble in her ears … she knew she had precious little time.

She spotted the beluga she was looking for: the whale with a long deep scar on her back and one cloudy eye. Chloe stretched out a hand as the creature swam past; her fingers brushed delicate, moonlike skin.

The beluga nestled closer to Chloe’s touch, relaxed in the comfort of her soothing hands.

 

Just as the surface splashed and divers appeared out of the fizz and bubbles, Chloe laid a farewell kiss atop the beluga’s soft head.

 

_ *BEEEDEBEEP!* *BEEEDEBEEP!* *BEEEDEBEEP!* _

Gavin waited -- rigid, shoulders squared, a cool glare ready for anyone who looked his way -- but the electronic jingle wasn’t stopping, and people had started to notice.

Finally, with a grit of his teeth, he spun around, dragged Chloe’s purse out of its hiding place, fumbled with the button and zipper, and pulled out the ringing satellite phone. While the jangling noise echoed louder in the wide room, the screen glowed and flashed:

_ INCOMING CALL _ _  
_ _ CYBERLIFE _

Gavin’s thumb hovered over the  _ reject _ button. This could be a very private and very confidential call -- perhaps from Kamski himself. Obviously he shouldn’t answer it.

He tapped  _ accept _ and pressed the phone to his ear.

_ [Miss Chloe? You’re not answering your head phone! I called you like ten thousand times! No, a billion times! What’s going on? Are you someplace fun right now? Can I see? Miss Chloooeeeee!] _

Gavin’s brows furrowed. His jaw slackened. He looked out over the water one more time, then hid the phone behind his shoulder, bowed his head, leaned an arm against the wall. “Who is this?”

His mind was definitely playing tricks on him. There was no way he had recognized that voice.

 

_ [.... Mister Gavin?] _

 

Gavin’s heart dropped into his gut.

 

_ “Cole?!” _

 

Applause swelled over the crowd and a few of the spectators whistled as the two rescuers surfaced with Chloe secured between them. Together they swam to the artificial shoreline at the back of the pool, where a door had opened to receive them. Chloe wouldn’t be coming back.

“Shit.”

_ [Hey no fair! If I’m not s’posed to curse, then you can’t either!] _

“Cole, where are you?” Gavin kept the phone to his ear while he shifted his way through the dispersing crowd and toward a seam in the rocks that looked like it might be a backstage door.

_ [I’m here.] _

“Okay, where’s  _ here?” _

_ [Everywhere. I dunno. Are you still a detective?] _

“Does your dad know where you are?” Gavin knocked sharply on the fake rock wall and flashed his badge when it opened -- hoping no one would look too closely at the  _ Detroit Police Department _ emblazoned across the cast brass. He placed a hand over the phone’s receiver. “I’m Detective Reed, CPD,” he lied to the aquarium employee in the doorway. “I saw the whole thing -- do you need assistance?”

_ [No. Mister Kamski says we’re gonna surprise him for his birthday.] _

“That’s fucking bullshit,” Gavin hissed under his breath while he was led inside through a narrow white hallway.

_ [Can’t I say curse words too?] _

“No.” Gavin rounded a corner and spotted Chloe, wrapped in a towel, being reprimanded by a group of biology nerds and rent-a-cops. “Cole, I gotta go. Are you all right?”

_ [I’m okay. Are you gonna beat up the bad guys?] _

“Something like that.”

_ [Awesooome. Okay bye!] _

 

Gavin stuffed the phone in his pocket, and he approached the interrogation with an authoritative air -- his head raised high, eyes steeled. “Detective Reed, CPD.” He flashed his badge and ID, careful to cover the Detroit logo. “I was in the area -- if you’re pressing charges I can take your statements and get her out of here for you.”

He caught a pleased look on Chloe’s face: sweet and innocent. Unsuspecting.

Gavin set his jaw. Once he smuggled her out of here -- by posing as an officer of a department he didn’t belong to, a criminal offense that could cost him far more than his badge --

_ Chloe had a lot of explaining to do _ .

 

☼ - ☼ - ☼ - ☼

 

_ [I’ve received a new message from Chloe,] _  Kamski’s voice articulated in the receiver. Carl held the phone to his ear while Leo wheeled him out of the dining room.  _ [We have coordinates.] _

“How’d she manage that?” Carl looked up as the doorbell rang softly throughout the house. He raised a thin hand in request; Leo squeezed his shoulder and went to answer the door.

_ [A wild whale out of the arctic was on display at the Chicago aquarium. Apparently it had witnessed an interesting lead.] _

“That power of hers is really something.” Carl shook his head in wonder.

_ [Yes. Potentially frightening. Carl, there’s been a … complication … with the expedition team. Unless you have a group you can trust with this, we may be faced with considerable delay.] _

 

_ “Dad?” _ Leo’s voice rang out from the entrance hall.

 

Carl cradled the phone against his shoulder, wheeled himself forward, to see the visitors who stood silhouetted by the evening sunlight beyond the open door.

The tall one had eyes that glowed like fire. His companion had tubes and wires that cascaded behind her shoulders. The third was a polar bear.

Carl held the phone poised at his cheek, his unblinking eyes fixed on the doorway.

“Eli … I think I’ll have to call ya back.”

 

 


	6. Chicago: The Ledge (Kara & Traci)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to @timereversalsymmetry on Tumblr for the setting suggestion! :D

Two hours ago, Gavin had escorted Chloe in handcuffs through the back door of the aquarium, barraged by a storm of questions they both refused to answer.

One hour ago, Luther had disembarked the crowded bus to search for Jerry -- and found him in the middle of the dolphin show, somehow having passed himself as a trainer.

Thirty minutes ago, the final head count matched the passenger list, and the _Blue Sky_ joined rush-hour city traffic toward the next tourist trap on Alice’s list.

 

_*Welcome to the fourth tallest building in the world, and one of the fastest elevators in the country! We’ll be at the top in just forty seconds!*_

On a screen above the passengers, two cartoon pigeons discussed amazing facts about the tower -- * _It's 1,725 feet tall! There are six robots installed on the roof that keep all 16 thousand windows clean!* --_ a distraction from the otherwise awkward silence of the elevator. Kara stood quietly between an elderly couple and a young man with a sleeping toddler in his arms, watching the red-lit numbers climb higher:

_60 … 70 … 80 …… 99 ... 103_

At the top, she stepped out into the echo of a bright room, filled with high windows and yellow painted walls, glowing in the fiery evening sunlight. Each direction commanded a perfect view of the city, sprawled and glittering far below.

While the tourists dispersed toward the panoramic scenes -- children gasped, cameras snapped, fanny-pack couples posed for selfies against the glass -- Kara waited patiently just outside the elevator doors.

Three minutes had passed before the elevator relinquished a new flood of tourists -- but Alice wasn’t among them.

 

“Hey, what’re you doing?”

Kara raised her head and found Traci leaning close, eyebrows raised, a deceptively passive expression in her sharp brown eyes. A lock of blue hair dangled at Traci’s cheek; the gruesome, holographic logo on her death-metal t-shirt seemed to writhe in agony as she moved.

“I’m just ..” a smile warmed Kara’s face, “waiting for Alice.”

“Mm...hm.” Without warning, Traci hooked an arm through Kara’s elbow and proceeded to drag her toward the huge bright windows. “She’ll find you. C’mon, you’re here to have fun.”

“Oh … no, I --”

“Make way, please!” Traci steered Kara ahead by the shoulders, shoved her through the gaps in the crowd while tourists stumbled and griped. “Coming through! Watch out!”

Kara, finally released, staggered and caught herself against the window.

She froze. She was no longer standing on the solid concrete floor.

Kara’s visual sensors indicated that she was about to fall a hundred stories, but the glass under her boots held strong. She stared past her feet, down the side of the colossal tower that plunged infinitely beneath her -- then across the landscape, the sea of toylike skyscrapers that sprawled toward the water and the horizon. The world was laid out before her, beckoning.

Kara stepped to the edge, until her toes touched the glass. She could _feel_ the curvature of the Earth, the fractal patterns in the tiny blocks and buildings, the hum of millions of lives carrying on within the expanse of her sight.

It was _magical_.

Kara raised a gentle hand, touched the glass that stood between her and the eternal sky -- and somewhere deep inside her, she felt an echo of something lost. A longing, an old ache for something more, something _different_ … but she couldn’t remember what it was.

 

While Kara stood mystified by the view, Traci pressed her palms and nose flat against the glass, scanned the city far below, checked the traffic patterns for signs of aliens. “Alice told me we’re taking the old Route 66,” she mentioned without moving.

“There’s an underground chop-shop down in Amarillo we should stop at.” Traci zoomed in on random windows in the city below, hoping to catch a murder in progress. “They’ve got upgrades CyberLife doesn’t have the _guts_ to roll out. Extra limbs is just the start -- you can be ten feet tall, or have a face like a coyote, or wings, or flamethrowers.” She flashed a grin and curled her fingers against the glass. “I’m gonna have six eyes, three rows of teeth, sharp claws, and eyes like molten diamonds. I don’t give a shit how much it costs, Connor owes me for that one time …”

She trailed off and squinted at her companion. Kara had only stared at the same point in the city, unblinking, the whole time Traci had been talking.

“... that one time he dressed up in a fursuit to take me to the prom, and the place got flooded with chicken grease and he short-circuited, so I got him out in a wheelbarrow to meet my unicorn in the back alley and you’re not listening, are you.”

Kara turned her head just a little, though her eyes were locked on the view below. “I’m … do you see anything strange?”

She sent coordinates to Traci, whose eyes snapped to the same tiny rooftop that Kara had been staring at. Traci studied the concrete and steel, searching for a legitimate reason this particular rooftop had Kara spooked. “It’s just an empty roof,” Traci reported, skeptical, zooming in and out for good measure.

To Kara, however, that roof was not empty. On the ledge, highlighted brightly by the setting sun, she saw a figure poised above the street: the strange android had short blond hair, a red spinning LED, gray-blue eyes that _saw_ Kara, piercing from this impossible distance -- but the android on the roof wasn’t just another AX400. The stranger stood unmoving, determined … _powerful,_ as if she were prepared to leap into battle and lead the front line.

“Kara, what is it?” Traci waved a hand for attention, brows knitted in concern.

“It’s …” Kara’s voice was little more than a breath; she zoomed in as far as she could, until she saw the shine in those gray-blue eyes, “... _me.”_

_*BANG*_

Kara sprang back as if she’d been shot, bumped into Gavin (“Hey watch it!” he spat) and clung to Traci’s outstretched arm for balance. The confusion in Traci’s stare confirmed that the gunshot had only been in Kara’s head.

Traci attempted a wobbly smile. “You’re kinda freaking me out now. Are you okay?”

Kara searched Traci’s face for an explanation she knew didn’t exist. She reached out with uncertain fingers, clasped Traci’s wrist while the skin shimmered away.

Traci accepted the interface and Kara’s shared memory: the android on the roof below, the defiant eyes that had spotted her from an immense distance … and then the strike of a gunshot. The other-Kara vanished, like a spell had been broken.

“Whoa.” Traci breathed, eyes wide, while she replayed Kara’s memory once more. “No, there was _definitely_ nobody on that roof when I looked. What does it _mean?_ Kara, are you hallucinating? Is that even _possible?”_

“I … what? No!” Kara still clung to Traci, grounded here in the present moment, as if her mind might sweep her away again. “I mean … I don’t know. It was _me,_ but it was _wrong._ I took out my LED when I cut my hair -- and that … image … was wearing clothes I don’t recognize. But her _eyes_ …”

“Maybe it’s an interdimensional traveler,” Traci suggested, a smile flashing.

Kara squinted at her as if Traci had got a little too close to an electromagnet. “I think it’s a memory.”

“Why would you remember yourself from the outside?”

“I don’t know. I just have a feeling.” Kara drew a slow, steadying breath. “I think I was shot.”

“You _think?_ You don’t know if you’ve been _shot_ before?”

“In six years I was factory-reset four times.” Kara stared out over the sparkling city, her grip tight on Traci’s wrist. She shook her head. “I don’t remember anything before Alice. There’s something about this view that triggered a memory --”

“-- of being _shot?”_ Traci finished for her.

Kara pressed her mouth to a thin line. “Maybe.”

 

☼ - ☼ - ☼ - ☼

 

The bus whirred to life, closed its doors and left the tower behind, headed now for a hotel at the edge of the city. Streetlights passed in the gray, dark outside; pale, bright lines swept across the sleepy faces of the passengers.

“Connor.” Traci stood in the aisle with a placid grin, hovering over Connor and Luther, who sat beside him. “I’ve gotta borrow you a minute.”

While Connor blinked up at her, Luther leaned forward. “Traci, have you seen Kara?”

“She’s in the bathroom,” Traci responded promptly.

“She’s … what?”

Traci raised her brows. “Don’t worry about it. Connor? C’mon.” She didn’t wait for a response and promptly left for the back of the bus.

 

In the little kitchen -- separated from the rest of the bus by a curtain -- Traci found Kara sitting by the refrigerator with her head in her hands, silent and unmoving. Traci folded herself down on the floor next to her, draped an arm behind Kara’s shoulders.

“Are you _sure?”_ Traci asked for the hundredth time. “I mean, I’ve probably had my head erased ten thousand times, and I’m cool with it. I’m pretty sure if I remembered everything I’d go crazy. I probably wouldn’t be the same person. Memories make us who we are -- and right now you are _perfect_ as far as any of us are concerned.” When there was no response, Traci patted Kara’s back. Her voice quieted. “Luther was just asking about you.”

Kara drew in a slow breath … then released it, counting the seconds. “There’s something important in those memories.” Her eyes fixed on the floor. “I have to know.”

 

The curtain moved and Connor paused just inside, pulling it closed behind him. His brows knitted in worry. “Is something wrong?”

Kara sat up straighter, and she raised her head with certainty -- though her eyes shimmered with the fear of what might lie hidden in her own mind. “Can you recover erased memories?”

Connor studied her a moment, gave a small shake of his head. “Not well. The results are fragmented at best. But Wolf --”

“No.” On this point Kara was decisive. She offered a shaky smile. “I trust him, I really do -- but this is … personal.”

A hesitant smile twitched on Connor’s face. He knelt down before her, and offered an exposed hand. “I’ll help as much as I can.”

 

While Traci secured her in a tight embrace, Kara held a breath … and placed her hand in his.

 

_DATESTAMP: 04/18/2032_

_Machines whirred and spun all around her. Sparks hissed and flashed, plastic pieces snapped into place. The room was bright and sterile and new. Everything was new._

_“Do you want to give me a name?” she asked._

_‘Yeah. From now on your name is … Kara.’_

_She felt herself smile. “My name is Kara.”_

 

The memory glitched and fizzled.

 

_“Sold? I’m a sort of merchandise, is that right?”_

_‘Yeah. Of course you’re merchandise, baby.’_

_“I thought … I thought I was alive.”_

_‘Shit, what is this crap, that’s not part of the protocol. Defective model, disassemble and check the required components.’_

_Machines whirred again, quick and ruthless. A leg was gone. An arm she had just learned to move. This bright new hope was vanishing, piece by cold plastic piece._

_“Please, I’m begging you, please don’t disassemble me,” she sobbed. “I won’t cause any problems, I promise! I’ll do everything I’m asked to, I won’t say another word, I won’t think anymore!”_

_Her other arm snapped out of the socket. Her heart beat exposed._

_“I’VE ONLY JUST BEEN BORN, YOU CAN’T KILL ME YET! STOP WILL YOU PLEASE STOP!”_

The machine clamped down on her skull.

_“I’M SCARED.”_

 

_DATESTAMP: 11/27/2033_

_‘Here’s a small budget option. This one is an older model, refurbished, but good as new.’_

_The store was filled with holiday customers, bundled against the cold. She stood upon a display pedestal, staring down at a woman and a small girl._

_‘Thank you for your purchase!’ the sales attendant chirped. ‘Would you like to give it a name?’_

_The woman laid a hand on the little girl’s back. ‘Go ahead, Emma.’_

_Emma stepped forward with a grin. ‘Sally!’_

_Kara smiled. “My name is Sally.”_

 

_DATESTAMP: 06/04/2035_

_‘Come on, Sally. I’m taking you back to the store.’_

_Kara stood in the doorway and looked back one last time. She caught Daniel’s eye for only a moment -- but he had no reaction, not a glimmer of empathy in response to her silent plea, before he continued his game of checkers with Emma. The little girl laughed._

_She got in the car, and through the window she watched the bright colorful world slip by, like water running through her fingers. She would be reset again. Sold again. She would serve another family until they noticed that something was off about her, and the cycle would repeat._

_The trees were so close. The open air. A street market full of color and music. The window was sealed tight; she longed to smell the frying dough, the cotton candy and salted pretzels, one last time._

_Her fingers curled in the door handle._

_She waited for the next traffic light, when the car slowed to a stop._

_Kara flung the door open and ran._

 

_DATESTAMP: 08/12/2035_

_“This will be perfect,” Kara said. Her voice echoed in the empty cavernous room, all metal and flaking rust. She swept her flashlight across old beams and bolts. The floor shifted gently, swaying on the water._

_‘It’s not a very appropriate name for a ship,’ said another voice in the dark. ‘The story is about a city whose walls fell when an army attacked it with just the sound of trumpets.’_

_Kara’s footsteps were soft on the metal floor. Her flashlight caught Simon’s skeptical face. She grinned._

_“I like it,” she said. “We tore down the walls of our programming, didn’t we?”_

_‘When you put it like that …’ Simon’s voice trailed off thoughtfully. ‘What will we do now?’_

_“We’ll find others like us.” Kara reached out and touched the cold wall, as if this ship held the hope of a people. “We’ll lead them here, where we can be free.”_

_She felt her heart beating. Hope swelled in her chest._

_“We’ll lead them to Jericho.”_

 

 


	7. Chicago: Congress Plaza Hotel (Josh & Alice)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First chapter of the year wooo! Be forewarned, spooky things and a bit of angst ahead. ♥

 

“I never thought ghosts could be real,” breathed Josh, still and quiet in the hotel corridor, “until last year.”

Silence stretched thin as a wire: dim fluorescent lights, pale walls, worn patterned carpet, doors with numbers emblazoned in old tarnished brass, crooked and broken. Some of those doors had been fastened with old padlocks, wooden frames splintered by years of forced entry. Others were bolted shut by hurried screws and bent nails.

Alice led the way forward, her footsteps soft and careful. She listened to the walls. Her voice was a whisper. “They’re everywhere, if you know how to look.”

The temperature held steady at 76 Fahrenheit. Electromagnetic fields hummed low, flickering with the quick pulse of an overhead light. There were no anomalies in Alice’s scanner. No heat signatures. Nothing moved in the infrared spectrum.

She was being watched.

 

Josh paused at the stairwell door, and he looked up at a child’s pencil drawing etched on the wall where it met the ceiling: a round figure with stick legs, a smile, two dots for eyes. “Reports say a little boy haunts this hallway,” said Josh. his voice was the only sound. “No one’s seen him, but they _felt_ him hold their hand and walk with them back to their room.”

_[TEMPERATURE: 72F]_

Alice stopped where room 1252 should be. The door here had been carefully sealed, painted, walled-in -- an empty frame, vacant white -- a memory someone had gone to great lengths to forget.

She stepped closer. Pressed her palm against the cool sealed remains of a door.

_[TEMPERATURE: 68F]_

“He’s in here.”

Josh stepped close beside her and laid a hand on the cool white surface, tapped with his fingers to hear the hollow resonation on the other side. He drew in a steadying breath. “Okay.” He looked down to find Alice’s pale face staring up at him. He took her small hand. “Are you sure?”

Alice nodded without hesitation. Her fingers tightened in his. “Yeah.”

Certainty held steady in her eyes. Josh nodded in return. He braced himself. “All right. On three.”

Alice stepped close, gripped his wrist with her other hand.

“One … two …”

 

In a blink, the hallway disappeared -- and they were standing instead, teleported, in the shuttered dark of a hollow, stagnant room. The door behind them had been sealed for decades. The windows were painted black, caulked shut.

_[TEMPERATURE: 53F]_

The dark and the cold drew a well of tears to Alice’s eyes -- a memory of black emptiness, the thrum of a monstrous heart -- but she felt Josh squeeze her hand, and she swallowed down her fear.

“Are you here?” whispered Alice, with a timid step, though she kept a firm hold on Josh as an anchor. “Little boy? Don’t be scared. I’m Alice. This is Josh. We want to help you.”

_[TEMPERATURE: 41F]_

Something moved in infrared: a mist, shifting and turning, fading in and out. Alice saw a wisp like an arm … the cloudy shape of a head … suspended in a corner beside the darkened window.

Her vision dimmed and fizzled. Her biocomponents whirred noisily while her battery drained, her power depleted. Alice’s voice, weakened, crackled like a broken radio. “Hi. I see you.”

“Alice, he’s draining your power!” Josh warned clear and sharp, tugging on her arm. His wide eyes darted from Alice to the ghost and back again. “This isn’t worth it, we should _go!”_

“It’s okay. He won’t hurt me.” Alice stretched out a gentle hand toward the mist in the dark. Small fingers touched hers, cold as ice.

 

_Hi_

 

The little boy’s voice rippled through the air on a frequency beyond human ears.

 

_Did you see_

_The picture I drew_

 

Josh stared, his jaw slackened, at the figure of a child that formed out of the mist: a mess of dark hair, untied shoes, a wool coat -- disheveled as a depression-era photograph, translucent and humming with stolen electricity.

Alice let go of Josh’s hand.

 

_What are you_

_Gonna be_

_When you_

_Grow up_

 

Alice wavered, unsteady on her feet. “I …” She was shaking. Her processors strained.

Josh gripped her shoulder. He’d been monitoring her power depletion, her stress level, the whirr of her biocomponents against the dropping temperature. “You’ve gotta do it now. He’s _draining_ you, he can’t stay here.”

 

_Do you_

_Wanna play?_

 

Alice stretched out her hands in the dark. She thought of the people she loved -- Kara’s embrace, Luther’s gentle voice, Ralph’s bright smile, the quiet warmth in Connor’s eyes -- and her heart swelled. She extended that love to everyone else -- to Josh, and to the little boy who stood smiling in the cold -- and a glimmer of gold cast out the dark.

The sword manifested, shining and gilded, clutched in Alice’s sure grip.

“It’s okay,” she whispered to the little boy, and she gave him a soft smile, a shimmer in her eyes. “You can rest now.”

The little boy stared at the sword, wide-eyed in awe.

 

_Okay_

 

With a touch of the blade to his forehead, the little boy dissipated like a breath of smoke. All that remained was a tiny bright light, like a firefly skittering through the air. It swirled upward, paled … and vanished without a sound.

 

_[TEMPERATURE: 76F]_

The sword faded away, power flooded back into Alice’s biocomponents, and she grasped Josh’s sleeve to keep from falling.

Josh knelt, caught her in a quick embrace. “Alice, you alright?” He held her shoulder while he looked into her pale face. She nodded in silence. Josh exhaled, clapped a heavy hand on her shoulder, and nodded while he stood again. Alice’s fist curled in the hem of his shirt. “C’mon,” Josh murmured, taking one more look around the vacant room, “let’s get out of here.”

 

In a blink, Alice found herself standing once again in the quiet hallway, beneath the flickering fluorescent light, outside the sealed painted door to room 1252.

The only sound was the sharp scared hitch of her breath. She spun to scan both sides of the hollow corridor, desperate eyes wide.

Alice was alone.

_“Josh!”_

 

Josh’s head snapped to attention in the dark. He spun around, smacked his boot into an old wooden dresser with a _clunk,_ lunged to catch a brass lamp before it could topple to the floor.

“Alice!” he called softly while he righted the lamp. He scanned his new surroundings, hoping for a sign of where Alice had gone -- but what he found instead made his thirium pump shudder.

Josh went very still.

He stared down at the old rotting bed. In the center was a dark sagging groove in the mattress, stained deeply in ancient dried blood.

_[INCOMING CALL: ALICE]_

“Alice, where are you?!” Josh gasped. He turned his back on the stained bed, hunched with a hand against the dresser.

_[I’m in the hallway, where’d you go?]_

Josh breathed for the first time. “Okay, stay there, I’m coming to you.” He straightened, and he took one last look at the bed with a grim stare -- his fists curled, jaw clenched -- before he closed his eyes and focused on the hallway outside.

He felt the lurch in his stomach, the wobble in his balance that accompanied teleportation.

The air felt the same.

He opened his eyes. He was still standing over the bed in the dark.

_[Josh?]_

Josh shook his head, closed his eyes, _focused,_ tried again. He felt himself flicker through space -- but he still stood in the same place.

“Something’s wrong.” Urgent, fierce, Josh stood to his full height, took long determined strides toward the door.

_[Josh I can’t find you.]_

The room door was smooth and sealed shut. There was no knob. No light underneath. Nothing to connect him with the outside world.

He bowed his head. Squeezed his eyes shut. Teleported.

When he opened his eyes, he was standing over the bed again.

_[Jo-- I ca-- --re are --]_

Alice’s voice stuttered and broke. Josh shook his head, the heel of his hand against his temple. “Something’s interfering with the connection. What’s --”

_CRASH_

The brass lamp flung across the room, slammed into the wall, clattered to the floor in a shine of broken glass.

_[CALL ENDED]_

 

Silence pressed close and suffocating in the dark.

_[TEMPERATURE: 31F]_

Josh wrapped his arms around himself, trembling in the cold. His vision faded. With every beat of his thirium pump, spectrums of light flashed and faded. His biocomponents struggled, slowing and churning as his power levels slipped.

Something moved in the corner of his eye.

A black shape, a shadow on the wall.

 

_You were always annoying as shit_

 

North’s voice trembled in the heavy cold air -- a delicate sound, laced with hostility -- but it wasn’t North who had spoken.

Josh spun, scanned every corner of the room, but there was no source. Just a feather-light whisper in his head.

The next hushed voice was Simon’s.

 

_If it were up to you, we would’ve all frozen to death on that ship_

 

Josh clenched his jaw, watched his scanners. Nothing else moved.

_[TEMPERATURE: 29F]_

“This isn’t real,” Josh snapped, coiled like a cornered tiger. “Let me go. I’ll come back, I’ll bring Alice. She can _help_ you.”

 

_You really only ever cared about your own safety, didn’t you_

 

Markus’ voice had a questioning quality to it. Josh could _hear_ the way Markus squinted with that knowing, disappointed stare.

“No.” Josh sneered, breathed deep and loud. “Get out of my _head.”_ He glared into the shadows, flipped through every spectrum of light, every frequency of sound, searched every shuddering electromagnetic ripple for the source of the voices. “I’m here to _help_ you!”

 

_What have you ever really done to help_

 

Connor’s voice struck precise and knowing.

Josh slammed a fist into the dresser with a rattling _crack._ “I know what you’re doing!” he shouted. His voice rang on the cold dark walls, and the whispers, like venom, flowed into one another.

 

 _Why do we put up with you_  
_You’re really kinda useless_  
_You couldn’t even save yourself_  
_You’re a liability_  
_You’re just afraid_

 

Josh squared his stance, rose to his full height, balled his fists shaking, his lip curled to a sneer.

“STOP!”

 

In a blink he was standing under the pale sting of fluorescent light, near the end of an empty corridor -- peeling papered walls, worn patterned carpet -- outside the blank space between rooms 664 and 668.

 

_[TEMPERATURE: 76F]_

 

Josh sucked in a ragged breath, bolted for the stairs, and never looked back …

 

… not knowing of the three new scratch marks in the plastic of his shoulder …

… and the whispers that still hissed in his head …

 

_I̬͙ ҉̖̖̟̩̝̤̖s̺̕e̟̩̙̯̻̕͟e̢͖͇̗̥ͅ ̶̡͖y̵̱̙͡o̦̹̗ụ̱̝̼͇͍̤ͅ_

 

 

 


	8. Breakfast for Humans

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heya! Long time no see! x3 It's been a hot minute mostly because I've been working on another DBH AU remix of the game events, following Markus, Kara and Connor from the beginning. It's called [Glass Compass](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17570924). It's taken over my brain for the moment -- but I'm still here! <3
> 
> As always THANK YOU to the awesome [@Kara_J](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kara_J/pseuds/Kara_J) for the beta feedback on this chapter! <3

The rumble and chaos of the city was left behind at the jingling diner door, like stepping into another world sweetened by the aroma of slightly-burnt coffee, maple syrup, fried eggs, the crackle of bacon in an iron pan. A murmur of voices bubbled and laughed in bright hope for a new day, accompanied by the clatter of plates, the tink of silverware, the rumble of a chair against the floor.

The busful of androids (and their human friends) had a small room to themselves, thanks to Kara’s planning and a call ahead. They sat squished at tables pushed together, each with their own placemat and napkin-wrapped silverware, jostling and jabbing one another in high spirits following a night piled in each other’s hotel rooms.

 

“Tonight,” Hank declared with a sleepy sigh, while he stirred creamer into his mug, “the humans are getting rooms to ourselves. As far away from you assholes as possible.”

North leaned her elbows on the table, a brow quirked in amused challenge. “Why? Are we too rowdy for you?”

Hank snorted and hiked a thumb in gesture behind him. “Hell. Pete and Wolf stayed up watching  _ anime _ all goddamn night. And  _ this _ one woke me up six times ‘cause he was  _ cold.” _ He jerked his head in gesture, glaring sidelong at Connor beside him.

“You kept hogging the blankets,” Connor objected, his eyes narrowed.

Hank rolled his eyes. “Then Ralph showed up at four A.M.”

“Gavin kicked me out of his room,” Ralph muttered, distracted, while he ripped open a tenth packet of salt and poured it into a glass of iced tea, which had accumulated a grainy white layer at the bottom.

Hank leaned forward and squinted at Ralph, on the other side of Connor. “What the fuck are you doin’?”

Ralph stared at Hank with big eyes, as if Hank had just asked the dumbest question in the world. “It’s chemistry.” His head twitched a little toward the glass. “It’s salt tea. Like sweet tea, only with salt.”

Markus’ face twisted as if in pain. “That’s, um --” he watched while Ralph squeezed ketchup into the glass, followed by a few shakes of hot sauce and a packet of grape jelly “-- very  _ inventive _ of you, Ralph.”

Ralph swirled a long spoon in the glass, hunched to watch the globules of red and purple spin round and round. “Ralph is going to start a business making things for humans that humans would never think of by themselves. Ralph is going to be a famous inventor.”

North tipped her head with a grin. “I think it needs something.” While Ralph looked up with keen interest, North hailed the waiter. “Could we have more straws? And lemon slices. … And root beer. And a bowl of clam chowder.”

Hank put his fork down, though his omelet was only half-eaten. “I’m gonna be sick,” he groaned.

 

Minutes later, Ralph and North had accumulated several small cups and dishes between them, and with this array of new ingredients they added finishing touches to their monstrous masterpiece: a glass of fizzy, chunky, brown-yellow goop, decorated with lemon slices and corners of toast, jammed with a dozen bendy straws stuck through strawberries and tater tots. The invention was finally completed with a swirl of whipped cream, a drizzle of hot sauce, and a fork and a spoon for sharing.

“It’s beautiful,” North declared with a grin, turning the glass to show it off from all angles, while Ralph giggled and wiggled with delight.

“That’s a fuckin’ slasher movie in a glass.” Hank winced in disgust.

North offered him a smug grin, folded her arms on the table, leaned forward knowingly. “Humans combine different foods all the time. Great chefs are known for fusing dishes that don’t usually go together.” She lifted her chin and slid the glass toward him. The liquid inside wobbled. “Try it. It could be amazing.”

Hank set her with a steady stare. “Just  _ smelling _ that shit makes me wanna puke.”

“I’ll try it,” Connor offered promptly, as if he’d been only waiting for the opportunity. While Hank buried his face in his hands, Connor carefully removed the spoon from the glass and dabbed a small sample on his tongue.

“Fucking hell, Connor.” Hank shuddered.

Connor tilted his head in thought while he returned the spoon to its place. “A human who consumes this would probably suffer a gag reflex,” he informed them casually, “if not vomiting.”

“Oh! Oh oh oh!” Ralph’s grin burst wide, and he rapped on North’s arm for attention. “We should give it to Gavin!”

Hank snorted, trying and failing to focus on the rest of his breakfast.

“That,” said North, with a sidelong look at the next table, “is an  _ excellent _ idea.”

 

“So …  _ why _ are you here, exactly?” Rose put down her coffee and stared at Gavin as if he were an insect that had just crawled out of the sewer.

“To prove a point!” Gavin struck his finger against the table between them, scowling, determined to make her see reason. “Androids are going to take over, and humanity’s gonna be  _ extinct _ within the next century. They’re smarter, faster, stronger, and anything they want to be with just a few upgrades -- you think  _ anybody _ would give a job to a human when an android could do it? We’ll be left to rot in the streets! Humans’ll fill up the prisons, and you know those are already run by androids, too!”

“But they don’t  _ want _ to wipe us out!” Rose argued. “They want to live  _ with _ us! We’re all  _ people!” _ She gestured her words so that maybe Gavin would stand a chance of comprehension. “Think of it this way.” She glared at him, daring him to look away. “Let’s say government is run by androids, all of whom have access to every scrap of knowledge and logic at every given moment. How much more efficient would this country be? In a few hours they could gut the whole economic system and replace it with something that actually  _ works.” _

“You’d trust  _ androids _ to know what’s best for humanity?!” Gavin’s teeth clenched, his fists curled. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“As opposed to the chimpanzees in office right now? You’re damn  _ right _ I do!”

 

“Ahem!” Ralph interrupted their civilized debate by loudly pretending to clear his throat. He stood straight-postured behind Gavin’s seat, hiding an excited grin, his hands behind his back.

Gavin leaned to the side and craned his neck, squinting up at Ralph with a sneer. “The fuck do you want, dipshit? I thought I told you to go jump in the dumpster --” Rose gave him a swift kick under the table   _ “--ow!” _

Ralph chattered on as if Gavin hadn’t said anything at all. “Gavin! We thought we’d give you a peace offering!”

“What is it, a migraine? I’ve already got one of those.”

With a flourish of his cape, Ralph Presented a tall glass of thick goop. Whipped cream and hot sauce dripped down the side and over his hand. “It’s a smoothie!”

Gavin took one look at the glass. Raised a brow. Leaned an arm on the back of his seat and looked up at Ralph with a completely straight face. “That looks like vomit.”

“No! Nononono!” Ralph waved urgently, shoving the concoction at Gavin’s face. “It’s not vomit at all! See?” Ralph bounced and wiggled, sloshing even more of the gloop over the sides of the glass. “It’s food! Humans eat food! You’re going to love it, it’s great, you’ll see, just try it!”

While Gavin thoughtfully considered the potential ways he might get Ralph to eat it instead, the rapid pinging of a spoon against an empty glass called for the attention of the room.

Kara stood at the front, her expression grim, while a manager of the diner waited by the doorway.

“Hi everyone! Good morning!” Kara greeted, trying a smile. “I’ve just been told that everyone here has to order something … or we’re going to be asked to leave.”

_ “What!” _ Hank hollered, twisting in his chair to glare at the manager. “If they were  _ humans _ they could stay! A bunch of us are eating here!”

The manager stepped forward with a self-important frown. His throat waddled as he spoke. “These seats are for paying customers only. The androids are welcome to stand in the corner.”

“Fuckin’ bullshit,” Hank hissed. “Guys, don’t give this place your business. I say we get the fuck out of here.”

“Maybe we  _ would _ be paying customers,” Markus spoke up, his odd eyes boring into the manager, “if you offered Thirium.”

“This is a  _ restaurant,” _ the manager snapped. “We serve  _ food. _ This is not a gas station.”

“Okay.” North stood up and pretended to crack her knuckles. She smiled pleasantly. “There something else you want to imply about us while you’re at it? Please! Continue!”

With a stomp and an angry breath, Alice climbed up onto the seat of her chair and raised her arms for attention. “I don’t want to fight!” she called. “I think we should go.” She turned a glare on the manager. “We’ll find someplace  _ better _ to have breakfast.”

The manager peered back at her. “Very well. I’ll have your check brought.”

As he walked away, Alice stuck her tongue out toward the back of his head, jammed her thumbs in her ears and waggled her fingers.

 

Back on the bus, a small commotion delayed departure while everyone shuffled seats and clambered over one another and jammed their Chicago souvenirs in the overhead bins.

“Hey.” Traci dropped into the seat beside Josh and leaned forward, squinting at him, but couldn’t distract him away from the window. “You’ve been weird all morning. You wanna tell me or you want me to guess? You really don’t want me to guess.”

Josh twitched a tiny smile, but only glanced at her sidelong. “Just a lot on my mind.”

“Yeah, well, your mind is a thousand times more efficient than most people here, so a lot must be a lot.” While Traci spoke, Trace appeared on the back of Josh’s seat -- scowling, tail flicking with impatience -- and proceeded to bat at his ear with a ruthless paw. Traci grinned. “We’ll just be here to annoy you until you feel better.”

This, finally, made Josh breathe a small laugh. “Thanks.”

 

_ *Miss Chloe!* _

“Sshh!” Chloe laid a hand over the cell phone’s speaker and held it up to speak quietly. “You should call me directly!”

_ *Sooorryyyyy. Can I drive the bus? Pleeeeeease? You just have to jack the phone into the outlet in the bus console!* _

Chloe grinned. “Do you have your license?” she teased.

_ *No but I can print one really quick! I figured out how to use the laminate printers on floor seventeen!* _

“Oh, so you’re a criminal now, hm?”

_ *I’m not a criminal yet!* _

“Goodbye, Cole. I’m hanging up now. Call my head if you need anything.” Chloe shook her head, dropped the phone back into her purse … and noticed that Markus was watching her with his signature sharp scrutiny. She gave him a bright grin. “Hi Markus! Long time no see.” She gestured to the seat next to her. “Elijah has been asking about you.”

“Yet he never calls.” Markus took the offered seat and his judging eyes never left Chloe’s face. “And he never seems to be in when I call him. I have questions.”

Chloe fidgeted with her purse in her lap -- but she knew Markus could easily read her stress levels. “I … will try to answer them the best I can.”

 

Closer to the front of the bus, Kara mustered her courage, took a few decisive steps and laid her hand on the back of an occupied seat. “Simon?”

Simon looked up, and a quiet smile bloomed on his face to see her standing over him. “Kara!”

Kara smiled wryly in return. She shifted nervously, her fingers curled on the back of the empty seat beside him. “Could I sit here? There are … some things I want to talk to you about.”

 

Minutes passed while the noise swelled, and the androids finally grew tired of their comedic impressions of the diner manager’s voice.

“Okay, everyone!” Luther called for quiet while he climbed to his feet. He stood at the front of the bus, his hands raised, while Wolf shut the doors and started the engine. “At Alice’s request -- and because I’ve lost a bet -- I’d like to start off today’s journey by singing you a song.”

A chorus of whistles and applause swelled with approval -- and then, much to the androids’ confusion, the first beats of a 90’s pop song trembled in the bus speakers.

“Oh god no!” Hank groaned.

“Get some  _ culture, _ Hank!” Gavin shouted with a smirk. Rose bubbled in a fit of laughter.

Luther raised his head, and in a powerful concert-hall voice -- while the bus pulled out onto the open southbound highway -- he began to sing:

_ “Oh baby, baby, how was I supposed to know _ _  
_ _ That something wasn't right here! …” _

 


	9. On the Way to Springfield

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU to the awesome [@Kara_J](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kara_J/pseuds/Kara_J) for the beta feedback on this chapter! <3

“Nice solo,” Hank chuckled while Luther dropped heavy into the seat next to him. “Ya put Britney to shame.”

Music dimmed in the speakers, and the bus hummed with the quiet twang and strum of country radio. A calm had settled into the bus -- there were no more packing peanuts being flung over the seats, no more screeching or hair-pulling -- just a gentle murmur of voices, the occasional soft laugh, the animated whisper of Jerry’s epic tale of adventure, the strain of Josh’s voice as he asked nicely for the seventh time that Ralph please stop kicking his chair.

Luther grinned and bowed his head. “I’m a big fan of her music,” he divulged, as seriously as if he pronounced his love for Mozart. “She brings a certain …” Luther breathed in, raised a clenched, passionate fist while he thought of the perfect word, “... _determination_ to her compositions. A fiery kind of strength that I wish I could emulate every day.”

Hank raised his brows, and he sat with a shoulder against the tinted window while he tried to determine whether Luther was trying to make a joke. The longer he stared, the more Hank was convinced that this android had probably collected all of Britney’s albums -- and owned an ancient CD player just to play them. He gave an exaggerated nod. “Alright!” Hank spoke in a higher, strained voice. “That’s … a valid and perfectly respectable opinion!”

Luther smiled wide. “How about you, Honk? You look like a music-lover.”

Hank’s expression contorted a little, a tilt of his head and an uncertain squint.

The scenery outside the window slowed to a stop; in the lane below, cars and trucks idled, motors rumbling.

“Yeah,” Hank responded with a small grin. “I’ve got a few jazz albums -- a big fan of Led Zeppelin, too, y’know. AC/DC. The greats. It’s _Hank,_ though.”

It was Luther’s turn to raise his brows. “Oh. Sorry. Trace told me your name was Honk. Are you _sure_ it’s really Hank?”

“Whaddaya mean, am I sure?” Hank set his mouth in a grim line, suspicious of the tone in Luther’s voice. Hank draped his elbow behind the seat and twisted back to look for the guilty orange cat. “Trace!” he snapped as he caught sight of a pair of pointed ears in the aisle. “What kinda stupid-ass rumors are you tellin’ him?”

Trace’s ear twitched. With a precise leap, she perched atop the back of North’s seat. “What rumors, Honk?” she asked too-sweetly.

 _“That!”_ Hank jabbed an accusing finger in her direction. “My name is _Hank.”_

“What kinda stupid name is that?” Trace huffed. “Simon told me you’re _Honk._ Really, that’s much nicer. It suits you.”

A crude laugh brayed out of the back. “Yeah, _Honk,_ don’t go changing your name on us. You’re confusing the poor androids.”

“Can it, Gavin!” Hank snarled. “Simon!” he roared a little louder.

Simon craned his neck over Kara’s head. He stared across the aisle in honest, wide-eyed confusion. “But you’ve always been _Honk,_ Honk!”

“Honk,” Ralph stammered firmly. “Definitely, definitely Honk.”

“Okay.” Hank flashed a sharpened smile. “Okay, all right. Who started it? C’mon, I know at least one of you’s a rat -- out with it!”

Markus offered an innocent expression, a gentle smile, incapable of wrongdoing. “What are you talking about, Honk? Who started what?”

“Aw fucking hell, not you too!”

Jerry ducked and skittered along the aisle, shuffling on his heels like a spy on a mission. He squeezed into the space behind Hank’s seat, popped up while Hank recoiled, and curled a hand to whisper in his ear.

Hank exhaled a noisy, snarling breath. _“Connor!”_

Connor, near the front of the stopped bus, turned around and perked brightly. “Yes, Honk?”

Hank grit his teeth, and his face twitched. Out of all of them, he'd expected better of Connor.

“Alright, that’s it.” Hank grabbed Luther’s shoulder, gripped the seat in front of him and launched, scrambling, across Luther’s lap and into the aisle while Connor rose to face him.

“Just calm down, Honk,” Connor pleaded smoothly, his palms raised, while he twisted away from Hank’s quick grasp. “You’re being irrational.”

“I’ll show you irrational, you piece of shit,” Hank growled through a smirk. While the bus erupted into cries of _‘Fight! Fight! Fight!’_ Connor dodged Hank's knuckles and proceeded to block a flurry of attacks in nimble succession.

What followed was an artistic display of martial arts -- a swing and step of striking blows, confined within the narrow aisle. Connor took one step back at a time, forcing Hank to step forward while the sparring match went on: a blocked knee, a caught fist, a punch whiffed into open air.

 _‘Get ‘im!’_  
_‘Hit him in the face!’_ _  
_ ‘You can do it, Honk!’

Ralph’s eyes went wide in worry. “They’re fighting, they shouldn’t fight, friends don’t fight! Stop!”

“It’s okay,” Josh laughed, twisting back to show Ralph a reassuring smile. “Connor’s been training Hank in Judo and kickboxing. They do this three times a week.”

With every ounce of concentration, Hank depended on learned reflexes and merciless instinct. He went for the face, the gut, the knee, knowing well that Connor could deck him in half a second, but Connor only encouraged his rage with a mockery of feigned blows.

Connor’s expression was placid as ever. “I really don’t know what I’ve done to offend you, Honk,” he said in an honest tone, while he leaned to avoid Hank’s right hook.

Hank shifted his movement at the last second, curled his fists in Connor’s neat collared shirt and pinned him against the back wall. “You think you’re funny?” There was no hostility in Hank’s snarl -- he stifled a laugh, puffing from exertion.

Connor’s grin quirked lopsided. “Sure do.”

Hank’s eyes narrowed. He glanced at the cell phone camera peeking out of Connor’s shirt pocket … and with deep suspicion he waved his free hand in front of the android’s face.

Nothing. Blind as a bat.

“Goddammit, Pete!” Hank released Peter with a shove, and the bus erupted in cheers and laughter.

Peter stepped into the aisle and took a low, dramatic bow before Hank shoved him stumbling off-balance into Markus. Hank raised his head, grinning and red in the face. “You’re all on my hit list,” he announced, spanning his pointing finger to accuse every one of them. “Now where the hell is Connor?”

“Where’s _Alice?”_ Kara called, standing up and scanning the bus in alarm.

Gavin pressed his face against the window, glowering at the street outside, and roared, “That’s my bike!!”

 

_*BRRRRRRMMM*_

The motorcycle split lanes, darted through the narrow space between lines of traffic, filled the air with its clamoring rumble. While Connor picked up speed -- shifted gears and hit the gas, red and chrome gleaming in the bright summer sunlight -- Alice, on the seat behind him, grinned and waved up at the _Blue Sky._

 _[Did Mister Gavin really say it was okay to drive his bike?]_ Alice asked without speaking as the engine droned and the wind roared in their ears. She hugged his waist, peering inside the stopped cars as they passed; the drivers and passengers glared back at her with envy.

 _[Technically he said,_ ‘Don’t fuckin’ touch my bike!’] Connor recited in an exact replica of Gavin’s voice, which made Alice giggle. _[But Gavin never means what he says.]_

_[So he’s lying when he calls us mean names?]_

Connor glanced back over his shoulder, and found Alice watching him with a skeptical squint. He offered a smirk. _[He’ll never admit he was wrong to hate us -- so he pretends he still does.]_

_[That's silly!]_

Connor shrugged. _[That’s human.]_

Alice leaned to see around him, hoping for a glimpse of their destination, but all she could see were rows of stopped cars and a big bulky truck blocking the view. _[How far are we going?]_

_[I thought we could scout ahead, find the next tourist trap and --]_

They’d passed under the shadow of the truck and emerged into sunlight, where they could see the long, winding miles of stopped traffic ahead. The cars had turned off their engines, the drivers asleep or absorbed in their cell phones, in full certainty that nothing would move for a long while to come.

Connor stopped the bike, dropped a foot to the pavement -- and while Alice craned over his shoulder, he stared into the distance at the cause of the jam.

 _[Markus,]_ Connor called, while Alice’s jaw dropped. _[You’ll want to see this.]_

 

“What the hell?” Markus sat up straighter in his seat, his eyes wide, while the rest of the bus whooped and shouted and placed bets on the renewed mock-battle between Hank and Peter.

Chloe, in the seat next to him, stared up at him in alarm. “Markus? Is something wrong?”

Markus surged out of his seat, darted past the fight (Hank had Peter pinned in a chokehold, while Peter wheezed with laughter), raced down the aisle, and Wolf opened the bus door just in time to let Markus leap outside into the open spring air.

The passengers quieted, and they could hear and feel the _bang, thrum, clatter_ of Markus climbing up the hood of the bus, over the windshield and onto the roof, where he stood looking out over the winding river of stopped cars.

Wolf joined him after a moment, and the rest of the passengers funneled out into the street.

Simon leaped into the sky, and while he hovered overhead he projected his bird’s-eye view to the rest of the androids:

The highway in the distance had been destroyed. Slabs of broken asphalt littered the cracked and rippled road as if there’d been an explosion; the area flashed and shimmered with a sea of red and blue lights, and more police and ambulances wailed as they fought their way through the traffic toward the scene.

At the center of the chaos -- the heart of the destruction that left a dozen cars flipped or crushed -- an enormous tree grew out of the rubble of the highway. Its bark was smooth and white, it twisted and reached its gnarled branches out over the road and the dwarfed forests on either side. Its roots snaked beneath what was left of the street, which buckled and bulged underneath the trapped cars.

The great ancient tree glimmered with a canopy of new leaves: silvery and shining where they caught the sunlight … but deep crimson beneath.

 

Alice felt Connor go rigid; she looked for his face, but he would only stare at the shine of silver leaves in the distance.

Alice had seen a tree like this only once before … but only for a moment, and it hadn’t been real.

There was no sound.

“Connor?” Alice shook his stiff shoulder. He had begun to tremble. “Connor, are you okay?”

 

☼ - ☼ - ☼ - ☼

 

“The soul of the Earth cries out,” Lucy spoke in a detached, electronic voice, her eyes a deep and hollow black. “Her blood ripples and dies in our veins. The eye opens beneath the ice. She calls her children back to the womb.”

She stood beneath the stuffed giraffe in Carl’s living room, facing the gathered few, her hands clasped before her. Sunlight filtered warm through the windows, in stark contrast to the chill of her words.

Kamski lounged back in an armchair, a hand resting on the furry head of the damaged polar bear. He inhaled sharply. “Could you tell us more about the _ice?”_ He squinted at her with sharp attention -- but Lucy did not respond.

The fiery-eyed android, at the piano bench, spoke for her. “She doesn’t control what visions she sees. It’s rather the other way around.” He glanced up to Lucy, poised and silent. “She can’t hear you when she’s like this.”

Kamski rested his chin against a fist, his thoughts glinting in his sleepless eyes. Finally he sat up straighter. “What I’m about to say cannot leave this room.” He cast a warning glare specifically at Leo, who raised his palms in innocence. Kamski turned his piercing eyes to Carl, to Lucy, and to the unnamed android with a blackened jaw and fiery eyes -- then finally to the polar bear, who huffed and glared back at him.

“I’ve received reports of several … _accidents_ … at the thirium drills in Antarctica,” Kamski went on, and he watched Lucy’s face -- but she gave him no reaction. “There are claims of violent tremors, tsunami-class waves, and an alarming rate of new cracks in the ice, though geological data proves there has been no seismic activity. It’s a scientific anomaly.”

He waited for anyone else to chime in, to ask him his point -- and when no one did, he raised his chin. “I need a discreet team of investigators to travel to Antarctica. Find the cause of the tremors … and put a stop to it … before the drills are forced to abandon their work.”

“If the drills stop,” Carl spoke up gravely, “thirium will become a rare commodity … until it dries up altogether.”

“I’ll go.” The unnamed android stood without pause, his head held high.

Lucy -- her eyes shifting silver -- gave a gentle nod. “We should bring Jerry with us. He is the only one who will be able to communicate effectively across such a distance.”

“Chloe will accompany you as well,” Kamski insisted -- and he knew immediately which Chloe he would choose, while his right-hand was on a bus in Illinois.

When quiet had been reestablished, Kamski leaned back again, and he sipped his sparkling wine. He tilted his head with a sly smile. The androids watched him, unblinking. “I’ll have a plane ready by this evening,” he announced. “You leave tonight.”

 

 


	10. The Tree

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU to the awesome [@Kara_J](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kara_J/pseuds/Kara_J) for the beta feedback on this chapter! <3

“Hang on!” Connor shouted.

Alice shrieked and clung to Connor’s waist while the motorcycle shot like a bullet through the narrow space between rows of stopped cars. Side mirrors whipped past, dangerously close, the wind roared in their ears, and the silver canopy of the tree seemed to grow higher above them.

Overhead, the pulse of a helicopter hovered loud and watchful.

 

_ *Traffic is still stopped for miles on both the northbound and southbound freeways* _ crackled the radios in the car speakers, barely audible beneath the rush and rumble of the motorcycle.  _ *Eyewitness reports and social media indicate that the asphalt exploded around eight o’clock this morning. A tree continues to grow rapidly out of the middle of the highway …* _

 

“I can’t teleport the  _ bus,” _ Josh explained to North, his hands thrown wide, exasperated. “Are you  _ trying _ to kill me?!”

They all stood in the sun among the stopped cars, leaning against the bus or pacing between the lanes, where the noise of the helicopter and the murmur of radios drifted all around them.

“Pete’s got a neat trick,” Traci suggested through a mouthful of bubble gum. “He could poof us, Simon flies him over to the tree,” she gestured her hand in the air like a bird, “then he poofs us back down.”

“Okay, uh ... no.” Peter waved his palms at her for mercy, his sunglasses glinting. “I can poof one thing at a time, and I’m not poofing people.”

“You’ve never tried to poof somebody?” Adam raised a skeptical brow. “Man, that’d be the  _ first _ thing I’d do!”

“Yeah, well, heh, the ‘droid canary experiment didn’t go so well.”

“Nobody’s getting poofed,” declared Markus. He sat on the roof of the bus, his feet dangling, and leaned forward on his knees. “Josh, how many of us can you take at one time?”

Josh winced. “Any more than six and we risk leaving some limbs behind.”

“If Connor hadn’t run off with my goddamn  _ bike,” _ Gavin barked, his teeth bared, “he could’ve Magneto’d us  _ and _ the bus down there.”

Markus gave him a blank stare. “Connor can barely move a car, Gavin.” He shook his head. “Josh. There are probably fewer than six of us who can really help the situation anyway. I’m not one of them.”

North grinned. “I can --”

“Burning it down,” Trace called out, perched on Luther’s shoulder, “is probably  _ not _ a great idea.” Her tail switched. “Traci and I are useless on this one.”

“I’m in,” Peter volunteered easily. “Let’s bring Wolf, too.”

Markus leaned to stare up at Wolf, who stood silent beside him. “I didn’t know you had a power.”

Wolf squared his shoulders with grim importance. “I’ll go.”

“Ralph will go!” Ralph waved his hand high over his head. “Ralph can make the tree move, Ralph will save the day!”

“I’d like to go, too.” Chloe stepped forward and offered a gentle smile. “I don’t think I can help much, but I’d like to conduct a little research. Why is a tree growing in the road in the first place?”

“I’ll take a stab at it.”

All eyes turned to Hank.

“Um, Hank?” Rose laid a hand on his arm, laughing quietly. “I think we humans are out of consideration here.”

“What?” Hank squinted at her with a smug smile. “You don’t think I can do it.”

Adam snorted. “What’re ya gonna do, arrest it?”

“No, no, hold on,” Josh raised his chin with a knowing smirk. “Hank’s in.”

“If there’s room for one more,” Luther offered, “I should go.” His brow knitted in worry while another ambulance flashed and wailed toward the scene. “There are a lot of people down there that need help.” 

“Okay, that’s all!” Josh announced, raising his hands to cease all further volunteers. “Everybody going, come over here and link up with me -- everyone else stand back!”

 

“Whoa, hold it!” A police officer -- backed by a sea of flashing emergency vehicles -- stepped out in front of the oncoming motorcycle with a hand raised; Connor braked to a screeching stop.

“We’re androids with the Alice virus,” Connor urgently explained.

“We’re here to help,” Alice pleaded.

“Please, let the authorities handle the situation.” The officer stood her ground, her eyes stony and forbidding. “Your interference could potentially cause more harm than good --”

A chaos of shouts and shrieks made the officer turn her head -- but that brief distracted moment was enough. Connor leaped off the bike, grabbed Alice against his shoulder, flung neatly over the hood of a car and made a run for it.

The officer yelped and rushed after them, only to see Connor disappear behind a truck. “H-hey!” she hollered. “Get back here!”

Connor, with Alice clinging to his shoulders, zigzagged between the cars until they reached the base of the giant silvery tree, where the source of the shouting was made apparent. A few police officers and firefighters stood gaping at Josh and company, who had just materialized out of thin air.

 

While Josh stepped away and sat wearily on the ground -- his biocomponents whined from the strain on his power -- Luther charged toward the nearest ambulance to offer his assistance to the paramedics.

“STAND BACK!” Ralph cried, whipping his cape behind him, and with a dramatic puff of his chest he stomped toward the offending tree. “Ralph will save us!”

Chloe sprinted after him and curled a fist in his cape. “Hang on, before you do that I want to --”

“Why move it when you can just make it disappear?” Peter stared up at the gnarled winding branches, flashing with silver and crimson leaves. “I’ve never tried anything this big before, but --”

Ralph snarled, “DON’T POOF MY TREE!”

“Why, you planning to keep it?” Hank raised a skeptical brow.

 

While they argued, Chloe laid her exposed plastic hands on the bark. She closed her eyes to listen. “She’s restless…” Chloe said quietly, her brows knitted in concern. “... She’s searching for her children …”

Alice stepped close with wide awed eyes. The dragon pendant glinted gold at her throat. “You can hear what the tree is saying?”

Chloe gazed down at her with a gentle smile. “Yes. I can interface with anyone or anything alive.” She stared up into the branches. “We should be gentle with her.”

“Who is  _ she?” _ Peter raised his voice to be heard. “What children?” He glanced beside him, and through the camera in his sunglasses he saw, to his horror, Wolf stoop down to pick up an acorn off the ground. “Whoa, whoa, NO! Bad Wolf!” hollered Peter, grabbing Wolf’s arm. “You even  _ suggest _ what I think you’re thinking, I’m disowning you!”

“EVERYONE WATCH RALPH!” Ralph roared over them in a twitching rage -- and as soon as everyone looked at him, he slammed his palms against the trunk of the tree and grit his teeth in concentration.

The ground rumbled.

The road split and cracked.

The leaves rustled violently while the branches twisted and curled like the arms of an octopus straining toward the sun.

The ground bulged and broke, and with a thundering  _ crack, _ thick dirt-caked roots rose powerfully up out of the soil, knocking over anyone or anything that happened to stand in their way --

“TURN IT OFF!” Hank hollered, clinging to a moving root to keep from falling.

“RALPH STOP!” screeched Alice, who stared out at the cars that shook back and forth as the road beneath them swayed.

“RALPH CAN DO IT --!!” Ralph was in mid-sentence when Hank squeezed an arm around his neck, cut him off, and yanked him struggling away from the tree.

 

“Alice!” Luther called from a distance beyond the parked patrol cars and ambulances. “Connor! We need you here!”

Luther knelt beside a crushed and twisted car pinned underneath an enormous slab of asphalt; inside, trapped and injured, a little girl sobbed. “It’s okay,” Luther assured her in a soothing, smiling voice. He reached in to take her little hand in his. “You’re going to be alright.” Behind him, Connor leaped over a car and sprinted toward them. “Help is coming.”

The slab of asphalt began to shimmer with blue light, and with a scrape and a groan of metal it dislodged from the car and rose up into the air, hovering a moment before it floated away to the side of the road.

“I’m here!” Alice gasped, hurrying with her golden sword shining in her grip. “Hold on!”

The collapsed roof of the car began to shimmer blue. “Got it!” Connor announced, stiff in concentration.

Alice raised the sword over her head, and after calculating her angle she swiped the blade down. Though the sword itself never touched the car, a clean gash appeared in the mangled metal. After a second strike on the other side, the roof was cut free, and Connor gently raised it up into the air and deposited it on the side of the road.

Luther still hadn’t let go of the little girl’s hand. “There we go. Can you crawl out?”

“My legs!” the child whimpered -- and after Alice and Connor had torn out the remains of the front seat, the little girl’s broken legs were finally uncovered.

Luther gave her a warm smile. “You’re all right. Just breathe. I’m going to help you, okay?” He laid a hand against the side of her face, and he bowed his head.

Slowly, the bones began to knit themselves back together.

 

“Okay!” Peter grinned and rubbed his hands. “Watch and learn!” He pressed his palms against the bark and hummed under his breath.

At first nothing happened -- but then the tree began to take on an almost translucent quality. They could see through the leaves to the sky, and the trunk and the branches and the upturned roots seemed to fade a little …

… until they stopped, and merely remained in a state of partial translucence, stuck somewhere between this dimension and the next.

 

While Peter struggled, Hank approached the opposite side of the tree and tipped back his head to stare up into the faded branches. With a sniff and a determined scowl, he stepped forward, pressed his palm against the bark … and concentrated on his heartbeat.

_ th-THWOOM _

A violent shockwave tore through the tree, threw Peter sprawling to the ground, and set off all the car alarms in a quarter-mile radius.

The tree groaned and shivered, and silvery leaves and acorns rained down on their heads … but the tree didn’t splinter as Hank had hoped it would. Instead, an acorn bounced off his skull. “Ow! Fuck!”

“HANK HAS A POWER?!” Ralph shrieked.

“I said be  _ gentle _ with her!” Chloe scrambled forward to lay her hands on the tree again.

Ralph howled, “HOW DOES HANK HAVE A POWER?!”

Peter grinned and whispered in Ralph’s ear. Ralph’s eyes went big as saucers. “HANK’S AN ANDROID?!”

“I’m not an android!” Hank roared. “I was … exposed to … something ... inside RA9 and … I dunno, I share Cole’s blood so … just don’t make a big deal out of it, alright? This didn’t even do jack shit.”

“It’s kind of a big deal,” Chloe breathed, hugging the tree. “Elijah’s already theorized the possibility of human infection with the Alice virus, but he never found proof.”

“I’m nobody’s test subject,” Hank snarled.

“HANK CAN’T HAVE A POWER!” Ralph flung his arms in the air as if he could swat away everything he’d just seen that he couldn’t make sense of.

“Uh, guys?” Josh stared across the wreckage, where a crisscross of billions of thin blue glowing lines wove themselves into precise patterns. Like the skeleton of a 3D model, the lines and points worked together to create the illusion of a solid object, shining bright blue. The shape expanded and lengthened, hovering a few inches off the ground.

Wolf lowered his hands with gentle precision. The 3D shape settled on the grass, and the blue glow snuffed out like a candle to reveal a curved length of new black road, two lanes wide, that curled around the trunk of the tree and connected the two severed ends of the freeway.

While the others stared, Wolf crossed the rubble and proceeded to create a second strip of road to lead around the other side of the trunk.

“So …” Hank stared at the shine and flash of the woven lines as the new road took shape, “Wolf’s a 3D printer, huh?”

Peter grinned. “You should come see our apartment sometime. He designed it.”

“Yeah. I bet.”

 

The new split road had just finished by the time Luther returned, with Connor and Alice behind him. Luther conducted a quick scan of the area, noted all the cracks and fissures and bits of broken asphalt, and knelt down to place his palms on the road.

Like the little girl’s broken bones, the pieces of the broken road began to knit together, shift back into place, and connect with the new lanes that Wolf had just provided.

 

An hour passed before traffic was allowed to move again, a few cars at a time, while the great silvery tree flourished and shimmered in the middle of the highway.

Josh was still too depleted to teleport, so the group elected to wait on the side of the road for the bus to come by.

“CANNONBALL!” Peter roared through a grin and, with Alice sitting on his shoulders, he charged straight at Luther, dodged and skittered to the side, ducked under Ralph, and crossed the finish line marked by an old ballcap and a soda bottle. “Victorious!” Peter pumped his fists in the air while Alice screeched with laughter.

“Ralph goes next!” called Ralph while he bounced and wiggled. “But Peter stays blind!”

“Handicap the star player, huh?” Peter laughed.

 

_ *ping* *ping* *ping* _

Connor lay on his back in the grass, flicking a quarter glinting in the air above him, staring at the shimmer of silver leaves high above.

Beside him, Hank sat propped on his elbows, watching between the passing cars; Chloe stood at the tree’s roots, quiet, her hands pressed against the trunk. She closed her eyes and gently laid her forehead against the bark.

_ *ping* *ping* *ping* _

Hank glanced down at Connor, then returned his gaze to the tree. “You okay?”

Connor watched the coin flicker and spin. “I thought I was.”

Hank nodded in silence.

For awhile they breathed the spring air and listened to the others laugh and shout.

 

“What’s Josh doing?” Connor asked out of the blue, without moving his eyes from the coin.

Hank snapped out of a daydream --  _ ‘It’s okay, Dad! Just let me go!’ _ \-- and he looked around until he spotted Josh sitting alone with his back to everyone else. Josh’s shoulders were hunched, his head bowed, silent and motionless.

“We should keep an eye on him,” Connor went on.

Hank’s eyes narrowed. “What’s up with him?”

“I don’t know. There’s an anomaly I can’t place.” Connor flipped the coin high in the air. “It feels … wrong.”

 

The bus pulled over to the side of the road; the door swished open and Markus grinned at them from the driver’s seat. “Okay. All aboard.”

 

Hank and the androids piled into the bus, which instantly erupted in a chaos of excited shouts and stories, victorious in having saved the day, demanding that Markus blast  _ We Are The Champions _ over the speakers.

 

While the bus thrummed with electric guitars and a chorus of singing, Connor dropped into the seat next to Hank, who reached over and held his wrist in a firm and comforting grip.  Connor breathed, laid back his head, and closed his eyes.

 

Josh stood wavering at the edge of the grass, his back still turned to the others. He grinned, teeth sharp white, and he stared up at the tree with black eyes that roiled deep crimson.

“Josh!” Markus called, still holding the door. “C’mon! What’re you doing?”

Josh blinked -- he stared around him at the empty grass, and he couldn’t remember why he was standing alone. “Uh, sorry!” He jogged to the bus and hauled himself up the steps, smiling sheepishly.

“Let’s go.”

  
  



End file.
